Because I'm a day or two behind....today I was on Tony Evan's lesson on Pursuing Your Heavenly Citizenship. This really impacted me. And I listened to it all, which I normally do...but there's often a spot where I rest and marinate. I love doing this. I encourage you to do so if you don't on a regular basis....listen to a variety of teachers and marinate on the word. Then think about how to apply it.
If we have our citizenship in Heaven and are strangers here....yet we have not yet arrived....what does that mean?
Is that an free pass to be sneaky and shady? Living as we'd like, hurting who we may? Focusing on self and fretting not about others? Can we just glide through? I mean...we have not yet arrived, right?
No.
Spiritual development is not developed by gliding. It must be a diligent, determined decision to grow spiritually, to pattern ourselves after Jesus. We cannot glide. We must press.
If we sit back, do the same old things, fall into the same old behaviors....we will not mature. And it's so easy to slide into those old ways. It's comfortable. Why is looking back so easy? I think we take our focus off of what is important in the moment for our flesh. But what is important in the spiritual?
Where are your priorities? Where are you trying to go?
Priorities.....I think we so often think of priorities in the sense of what we want to or plan to "do".
I am going to be....
I plan to....
These are often followed by tangible goals and dreams we have of the money we will make, the activities we will pursue, the vacations we will take, the home we will own, the weight we will be, the friends we will have, the mate we will attract....believe I am not trying to insinuate that those things are sinful or wrong. But I don't know that they should be our priority.
What if our priorities were spiritual? Becoming more like Christ. Paul spoke of the fruit of the spirit and gave us the following....love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Are you actively pressing toward this fruit? Or are you trying to glide into these attributes? If you are trying to glide....that might cut it for a bit. Your charm, your hiding, your ability to juggle might allow you time to 'show' others that you are love or kind, or filled with goodness or able to control yourself. But it won't last. Because when you are just gliding through....you won't be able to withstand when the temptation comes....when the challenging circumstance comes...when you aren't getting your way. In those situations...you MUST be able to press on. You must be able to stand and push.
As we are travelling toward spiritual maturity...who are we headed there with? I am not one who believes that we need to cut anyone who doesn't think like us or believe like us out of our life. But I do believe that it is imperative that we have some folks around us who are headed the same way. What do we tell our kids....you are a reflection of who you hang out with...you are the company that you keep. Why do we think that is different for us as adults? Think about it....as an adult...when you find yourself with a new set of acquaintances, co-workers, friends...and they have different values, ideas, even behavior....how easy is it to slip into behaving in ways that are counter active to your spiritual nature? You might find yourself cussing more....joking about things you normally wouldn't more....judging more...gossiping more....or things even more compromising. If we are with those who see no harm in those things....might even encourage such things....and those are the voices speaking into our life? It's time to reevaluate.
I'm speaking to myself as much as to anyone else. I want to leave behind the misguided priorities and the people and things that sidetrack me and cause me to detour from where I'm headed. I do not want to glide and I want to be mindful when I sense that I am doing so. I also want loved ones around me with the ability to tell me when they think I am.
I love the difficult road it is to follow after Jesus. Some who know me, know that I often joke about 'setting my Jesus down' or 'flesh Mindy'. i'm human. I get off course. I behave in ways Christ never would. I want revenge, I want punishment, I want to be right.
But those that know me well, know that my heart's desire is to be like Jesus. To ooze the spirit out of my pores. I know Christian has so many negative connotations now...and humans have done so many horrific things in the name of Jesus...so I honestly do not like saying I am a Christian.
But I love Jesus.
And I want to pattern my life, as best I humanly can, after Him.
Full of grace and love and integrity and truth and compassion.
Refusing to glide through life....and fighting the temptation to do so.
Rather pressing on, pushing through so that He might increase and I might decrease.
Because the race is not over.
That's what I got today.
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