Pastor Cindy said something quite interesting last night: "This is the most at peace I have ever known your soul to be and I have known you a long time." We discussed this for a few minutes and I think that peace was found somewhat by accident.
Before I dive in any farther, let me say this-- I sin. I am selfish. I get angry WAY too easily. I don't love others like I love myself. I swear in the car. A LOT. And the list could go on. Please do not think that I have holiness figured out by any means by what I am getting ready to talk about.
Peace (the peace that I have and it is still a work in progress) came to me, as I said, as a bit of an accident. Peace was the by-product of moving past just salvation and into trusting the Holy Spirit to begin, continue and finish His sanctifying work in my heart and life. This really has been stumbling towards the holiness that God calls all believers to. AND it still is! It is constantly two steps forward and a step or step and a half back. For the majority of my Christian life I relied on Christ alone and just kept asking for forgiveness when I sinned, with no real intention to try to stop sinning. I lived in a constant need for my sins to be covered by the blood of Christ. We do not grow when this is our mentality. We stay in the same cycles of sin and need of forgiveness. We feel defeated and our fruit is limited, if present at all. There is no peace, joy or love in this kind of cyclical relationship with God. This is also not biblical. Scripture teaches that we are to be growing, that we are to move from glory to glory, that we should move off of spiritual milk and eventually on to meat and things of greater nutrition. Alas, I digress...
A few years ago I made the conscious commitment to surrender my life to the control of the Holy Spirit. Was this easy? NO! I liked some of my sin. I liked the idea of sinning and asking for forgiveness but not really avoiding sin. But then the words of Paul struck my heart (because Scripture is alive and is meant to change us), "Do I sin all the more to keep receiving more grace? No." Oh Paul, how right you are! How wrong I was to spend the first decade or more of following Christ in such a powerless relationship with the Holy Spirit. After making the commitment to give the Holy Spirit my all, I told people for accountability's sake. Then I went headfirst into how to get free and how to be holy. My first book in this endeavor was Spiritual Warfare by Karl Payne. I highly recommend this book for anyone who can't get victory over specific sins or to anyone who wants to help others find freedom in Christ. I took the words of Acts 2:42 seriously and I devoted myself to hearing the Word of God preached, reading the Word daily, fellowship, taking the sacrament of communion as often as it was offered and to prayer. I invited the Holy Spirit to be a part of my life and trusted that what the Bible says about transformation was (and still is) true.
After that the next few months were difficult. (But totally worth doing and I would do again.) I responded to the Holy Spirit's conviction and eliminated some of the things in my life that were causing me great separation from God. By the power of the Holy Spirit, I began to rearrange my life to reflect the priorities I set first in my heart and mind. I continued (and still do) to accept the grace God was (and is) giving me. I let the Holy Spirit heal some of the wounds in my heart by applying the truth of scripture to them and trusting wholeheartedly that scripture is True. In this process, I made mistakes. I still do. In this process, I have cried... TONS. But I have found Truth in the Word of God and been able to start trusting he is who he says he is. I have also been able to begin relying on the Holy Spirit that resides in me to guide, direct, comfort, assure, warn, convict, and many other things through daily life.
The bottom line is God wants all believers to live and walk by the Holy Spirit to find freedom through holiness. This is hard and it takes lots of work. However, I am committed to keep stumbling towards the heart of Jesus and to keep striving for the richness of holiness through the power of the Holy Spirit. And today I will rest in the peace that I have gained and look forward to the day where there is even more peace and freedom in Christ.
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