Personally, this was specifically witnessed for me when I felt the pulling from God away from Ohio a little over 2 years ago. I really wanted to honor Him with where I went and so I prayed and prayed for guidance and direction on where I was supposed to go, but I never actually heard from God a specific place of where He would call me to. At first it was pretty frustrating, but then I remember hearing Him say "Seth I trust you." I was taken a back to say the least... "God, You trust... me...?". It was amazing to learn this. To hear that the Creator of the universe trusts me... Oh my word I was speechless, and then a verse came into my head. "Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart." - Psalm 37:4
To me this meant that as I seek Him with everything I've got, His promise is to make me more like Him, and so as I delight myself in Him with my honest relentless pursuit of His heart, I can then trust that my desires have actually become His desires because He has made me more like Himself. And so really, He is trusting Himself in me.
For Christians, seeking is trusting in someOne you believe is greater than yourself; it's resting in His unchanging grace, it's believing He loves us perfectly and wants us to be whole. This is why we are called as Christians to live more than just a life of good morals. As Christians, we are called to live lives that look very different from the world's. We are called to live lives of holiness.
If we call ourselves Christians then we must look the One Christianity was made up after.
1st John 2:5-6 says "But if anyone obeys His word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did."
And so we should stand out in some way. We should live with purpose because we know the One who knows what the purpose of our existence is. We should live with power and joy, making choices that have long lasting meaning and impact because we have been emptied of our selfishness and have chosen to continually for the rest of our days be wholly surrendered to the Creator of the universe who knows exactly what human life is for because He created it!
"The pathway is not just a series of teachings, or even following an exemplary life; it is surrendering to a Person." - Timothy J. Stoner
Check out what Brennan Manning says in his book "The Furious Longing of God":
"Paul wrote in Philippians, "He emptied Himself." He cried from His heart, nails in His hands, and poured out His blood that we might believe His love for us. Significantly, Jesus chose the giving tree, His cross, as the demonstrative sign of His absolutely furious love for men and women. In the words of one early church father: "the mightiest act of love ever to arise from a human soul."
How is it then that we've come to imagine that Christianity consists of primarily in what we do for God? How has this come to be the good news of Jesus? Is the kingdom that He proclaimed to be nothing more than a community of men and women who go to church on Sunday, take an annual spiritual retreat, read their Bibles every now and then, vigorously appose abortion, don't watch x-rated movies, never use vulgar language, smile a lot, hold doors open for people, root for the favorite team, and get along with everybody?
Is that why Jesus went through the bleak and bloody horror of Calvary? Is that why He emerged in shattering glory from the tomb? Is that why He poured out His Holy Spirit on the church? To make nicer men and women with better morals?
The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand new creations. Not to make people with better morals, but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in eve greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love.This, my friends, is what it really means to be a Christian.
How is it then that we've come to imagine that Christianity consists of primarily in what we do for God? How has this come to be the good news of Jesus? Is the kingdom that He proclaimed to be nothing more than a community of men and women who go to church on Sunday, take an annual spiritual retreat, read their Bibles every now and then, vigorously appose abortion, don't watch x-rated movies, never use vulgar language, smile a lot, hold doors open for people, root for the favorite team, and get along with everybody?
Is that why Jesus went through the bleak and bloody horror of Calvary? Is that why He emerged in shattering glory from the tomb? Is that why He poured out His Holy Spirit on the church? To make nicer men and women with better morals?
The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus is meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand new creations. Not to make people with better morals, but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in eve greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy, boldness, and extravagant, furious love.This, my friends, is what it really means to be a Christian.
I believe a large part of the "seeking" is the praying, reading our Bibles, and in whatever other way in worshipping with the specific needed spiritual disciplines; the other half is the jump.
Our jump proves our trust, and it's within our jump that He meets us with His strength to get us across the rest of the way.
The revolutionary life that Jesus calls us to is one of ever continual surrender to Him and His will. It's all about trusting.
I know trust can be a hard thing to practice, but trust is endlessly looking for lives to revolutionize. Will you answer it's call?
Revolutionaries live lives of surrender to and dependence on something bigger than themselves, for they know that true life is found in losing it.
Revolutionary lives are found in trust.
And what is this trust? It's believing that our backs are fully covered at all times, in every moment by the Creator of the universe who loves us perfectly.
Revolutionary lives are found in His revolutionary love.
Knowing this is how we give up, give in, and surrender to the purpose of His kingdom.
Knowing this is how we live the "abundant life" Jesus promises us in John 10:10 when He said "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly."
Knowing this is why we would and could even want to live for something more than ourselves.
I truly believe that there is a longing deep inside us that is looking for something to make us whole, and the truth is that it only can happen when we fully give up and give in to what we were created to be; loved and led by God.
This is what Jesus meant in Matthew 16:25 when He said "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it."
I'm choosing to give up. I'm choosing to lose my life so that I can find it in something greater than myself. And my choice is Jesus Christ, the One who actually created my desires to be fulfilled within Himself.
Life doesn't get any better than this, seriously...
Won't you join me?
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