Thursday, July 14, 2011

reverance, fear, and holiness

i want to bring a challenge to you today because whether i like it or not, i HAVE to share what i'm learning and what God's impressing on my heart. it's like this unstoppable urge to bring everyone along with me. so, what i'm challenged with, i want others to hear too. so i apologize now :O)
something i've been feeling God impressing on my heart for about 2 years now is the word "holiness." it's one of those words that doesn't get thrown around in conversation very often. right along with reverance and fear. i think in these modern times we stray away from what we might consider "Bible terms," as though they don't apply to us. i think in our hearts we know they should, but we feel much more comfortable just leaving them on the pages than actually applying them to our daily lives.
i've been working through"a study of david," so alot of what i'm learning and will share will come from those pages. one thing that stood out to me that beth moore said, is that whenever God has a new day dawning in her life, he also demands a new reverence from her and has something new about his holiness he wants to show her. how true this is in my own life. but whether i respond to it is a different thing all together. i think we have seasons of movement. we can feel it. it demands response, but how many times have we felt that nudge, only to push it away and move forward with things the way they have always been....right where we're comfortable. this is where the challenge would come. we have to take God's command to come out and be seperate seriously. at some point we have to make a decision to follow. to not allow others, whether the Godless or even Christians, be our standard. how many times do we justify or gauge our lives by others. just because others may get away with irreverance, does not mean God is any less holy. in beth moore's study, she makes this statement, "we are sometimes tempted to measure our respect for God bythe lack of respect surrounding us. the godless however are not our standard. God is." i don't know how many times i've made the statement that we as Christians have a tendancy to look at our lives and pen a mark on our measuring stick and then look down to compare it to the mark of others, whether it's the world or the church. God's challenge looks a little different. try looking up. don't be afraid to see where God's mark is. it can be a bit intimadating if we see it as a climb we have to make ourselves, but if we see that the way to get there is only through the empowerment of the Holy spirit, we can see the hope of being like Christ. it's just like our pastor said a few weeks back, when we fulfill our responsibilities as believers, we have a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. we are living out who we were created to be. so many of us are stuck. i mean, how many of you actually spend time with God on a daily basis? be honest. now, if you're answer is rare, why do you think that's acceptable? as a new creation, given new life, expecting God's blessing and protection in our lives, why are we so quick to spend the least amount of time with the giver of those things. not that we should spend time with Him because of what we get, but because we love Him. we have hope of eternal life thanks to His son's sacrifice. that in and of itself is enough to spend the rest of our lives in worship and thanksgiving. instead, we give push back on commands like reverance, holiness, and fear. according to my own experience, we fear the unknown and are uncomfortable with vulnerability. we aren't practiced or trained in these things. in order to have freedom to fear God, revere Him, and strive for holiness, we have to be completely vulnerable. we HAVE to let go. we have to give Him room to change us. in order to walk out in these freedoms we have to take seriously our position as ,"a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation," (1 peter 2:9) i love my Bible. it has these awesome study tools called kindom dynamics. in one of them they make this statement." true authority is always related to a walk in purity and a constancy in worship. the spirit of worship is essental to all advance of the kingdom." ugh. how many of us really want to hear that? maybe on sunday morning, but how about on thursday afternoon when we are rounding up the kids and they are NOT cooperating. or maybe when a perfect stranger rudely cuts in front of us. how about when you're co workers are speaking of innappropriate things or gossipping about the boss. how about when your girlfriends are being critical of another woman's outter appearance. not those times. that's too much to ask of us.
so i conclude with this. we like the lessons and truths to be wrapped up in a pretty package on sunday morning. we like words like fear of God, reverence, and holiness coming out of the pastors mouth or presented in a beautiful melody, but when it comes to our personal lives, we want God to butt out. we want to live as we think we know best, just a few steps ahead of everyone else. but when life throws us a curve ball and we find ourelves in trouble, then we certainly expect God to come swooping down to rescue us.
now i can be a bit sarcastic and harsh with my words, but please know, i'm preachin to the choir here. i'm disgusted with my lack of reverance at times. with my own inability to allow God complete access to my heart, mind, and soul. but i have hope. i know God is good, kind, gracious, and only has plans to prosper me no matter the circumstance i may find myself in. and more than anything, i just want him to be proud of me. i want him to be able to trust me with more. i want others to want to know him as a result of knowing me. i want to love Jesus more today than yesterday. and i certainly hope all this for you.
i hope you're challenged today and i hope you choose the better life. the narrow, but most fulfilling path.
blessings
stephanie

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