Human Personality

The unredeemed human personality is a fiber of tangled thoughts and disjointed behaviors joined within a chaotic will all held in place by sin.  It only seems random, this life we hold, because we have given it over to the monster of unsanctified ego.  In one moment we feel pure and unperturbed and the next a roaring fit of distortions and maladjustments.  We do what we do because we think we must or to appease a lust or stem an impending disaster.  The panic that swells within because we can't make things work is an indication that we are out of whack; not just now but all day long.  The new life we have in Christ is a complete identification with the Salvation of God.  At any point we turn from it, we lose our way.  The world is an endless wave of opinions and strategies and misperceptions.  Rather than seeing God in the simplest red light or lingering indigestion, we give up on Him quickly and find some other way of making sense of things.   If we could just bend a bit toward God when we read something or hear a report or face a change of pace, we would do wonders for ourselves.  The Lord is on a continual mission to bring us back to Him in trust and affection and we fight and squirm in that work like little children chaffing at a seat belt.  At each turn look to Christ.  Look to Him determinedly, believing He will meet your there too.  The muddy path is just as golden as the crystalline one if you have Christ straight ahead of you.  The moment you push Him to the back of you, even the most warm and lovely of days can melt into a storm of wild winds and dismal dark clouds.  Take the time as soon as you think of it to turn to Christ hopefully, expectantly.  Read the Scriptures not to get something out of them as so many do but to be with Christ like two lovers sitting silently upon a couch.  His very presence transforms you, remakes you, beautifies you, comforts you, straightens you, inspires you, redefines you.  Nothing is more sure than this.  Christ is with you and He loves you.  Settle in beside Him and wait a moment for Jesus to quiet the storm. 

Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.  Matthew 8:26 NIV

Dense Lives

Given the density of so many lives, how is it that we would expect God to supernaturally maneuver among us?  The cry for God is nearly universal.  It is just that expectations have been so diminished by failure to encounter Him on our terms  that we schedule ourselves senseless.  The irony of our discouraged indifference is that we scurry about trying to find what in a moment the Lord Jesus Christ can give us.  Imagine the poor widow of Jesus' parable sweeping out her neighbor's house trying to find her missing coin or going down to the park with her back bent over, her eyes frantically scanning the ground for any sign of it among the shrubs.  The distressed poor soul would have been a fool to go out of the country hoping to find the coin in some far off land.  What she did was sheer genius!  She went into her own home and turned everything upside down there.  Is it any wonder that we have had such a disastrous go at this matter of "finding" God when we have gone hither and thither without our wits engaged at all?  The Lord Jesus Christ told the Pharisees that the Kingdom of God was right there with them...it had never been anywhere else and was not disappearing any time soon.  Our frantic chase after something, anything that can match the Presence of God right where we are is pitiful.  Give God enough space in your chaotic mind to meet with you!   Nothing screams more loudly than the wills and whims of the cascading world falling all about us.  The shepherds simply sat where they were in the stillness of the night and God met them there.  The Magi scanned the heavens for some hint of His presence and God met them too.  The disoriented woman at the well stayed long enough at her normal work station to give God a shot at speaking to her there.  Have we discouraged the Savior's efforts at getting through to us because we have been derelict in the one duty we have been given…"wait…"?  Your most productive moment of your day is the point at which you wait for God to wiggle His way into you.  You may not have a marvelous revelation, a fascinating insight but you could gain the sudden influx of Holy Spirit Presence that will re-calibrate your inner core so that God can orient you rightly.  You most likely will not see a blaze of starlight or a vibrant band of angels but you could know how to manage that barking child or gain peace over that tormenting debt.  Your Savior is your Savior.  If you wait upon Him long enough, He will get you through your turmoil with your joy intact.  Isn't that worth something?

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.  Psalm  27:14 NIV

Life Now

We are not told in scripture to follow after a principle or value; rather we are directed to a person.  The Bible is not a book of philosophical ideas or even of precepts; it is a signpost that points toward One who saves.  Nothing is more fruitless than the flailing efforts at keeping any of the bits of the Sermon on the Mount and anyone who indicates otherwise is a liar.  Before you murder you have already murdered.  Before you have committed adultery, you have already committed adultery.  Before you have stolen, you have already stolen.  It is all there at the front end of the action...the deed is in your head and you can't get at that with determination.  Nothing establishes your need for One Person more than the corruption of your life before you even act.  You know you have wanted something not yours simply because someone else has it.  You know you have despised someone without saying a word to anyone about it.  You know  you had your way with someone and never even touched that partner.  It is all there for you, the complete inability to live a holy and righteous life because if the truth be known, you don't want to live it.  But within some, and that number may be smaller than we think, there is a great longing to be all out for God, to be clean and pure no matter what.  It is then that the dawn breaks and you see the most important part...you need the Savior.   You don't need a Savior to keep you out of hell, you need a Savior to get you out of hell.  Life and death are not that far apart, they are the space between turning to Jesus Christ and not.  The lust that burns within you in a flash and the bitter hatred that flares in an instant have their kindling in the heart that is not depending upon Christ for all joy and peace.  Eternal life weaves its way through you in a twisted and convoluted way until you look to Jesus Christ to redeem each and every thought you have and then it grows straighter and more sure.  And soon enough one day you will only look to Jesus Christ and your victory will be proven fully in the shadowless realm of God's unending Presence.   The Christ life in not a concept but a reality for the one who turns to the Lord to save her from her thoughts and not just her public actions.  The more of Christ we take within us, the more we live and live and live. 

Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.  John 17:3 NIV