There
is a violence to God's working into your life Christ's personality. The perfect picture of this is our Lord
chasing the money changers from the Temple with a whip. If you believe the Christian life is to be a
serene holiday, you have not read either Job or Romans. There is a temptation in Christian circles to
kid ourselves about what we should expect from God. A great deal of teaching makes it seem like a
life free of diseases and distress ought to be ours if we just practiced
greater holiness but it cannot be so. In
this life we face a tremendous amount of trouble and countless heartaches and
that goes for both the "saint" and the "sinner". When our Lord enters your life, He begins to
cut out from you every strand of rebellion and ungodly desire and this does not
come with anesthesia. He gives you the
pain of your sorrow over sin that you might die to Sin emotionally and
psychologically. We are being made to
be like Christ in how we think about things and what we desire. Sin has corrupted not just the core of us
psychologically but also how we feel about every inch of the world. Do we realize that our Lord does not laugh
about the foibles of sexual sin like we do, that He does not chuckle when we
snap at our wife or criticize our parents.
Holiness is going to be built into us and perfect love shall bind our
personality together. Until this is
accomplished no amount of "self-realization" grounded in Sin will be
tolerated for it is the realization of God that is being worked in us. His hope, His faith and His love are
becoming ours but not without cost. Sin
must go. Pride must disappear. Self-determination will be eliminated. What will be left is a perfect union of
Christ and us; our personalities born again at every level of being. The unconscious and the conscious are being
conformed to Christ and nothing will get in the way of our Savior redeeming us
into a new creation. Settle this matter
quickly. God will do whatever it takes
to work His perfect love into you that what will come out of you will be joyful
holiness that is pure and unconquerable.
His
disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume
me. John 2:17 NIV
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