Pressing On

Ever since the time in my young adulthood when God got a hold of my heart for the first time and I made the decision to give my life to Christ, I have been plagued by a few thoughts that keep resurfacing over and over again in my daily walk. Before I share those with you though, I want to circle back quickly to my opening statement and remind us all of something very important. I grew up in church. I mean really grew up there because my mom was on staff and I was there almost every time the doors were open for a good period of my adolescence. However, I clearly just wrote that the time I became saved wasn't until my young adulthood. What's up with that? I want to make it very clear that my repeated presence at church for ALL those years wasn't what saved me in the slightest. I definitely had a great foundation for faith having heard the messages and attended the youth camps and retreats on repeat until I graduated and moved to college, but just having participated in those events for 18 years of my life didn't mean that I was saved by osmosis. The person in the pew next to me who already had a blossoming relationship with Jesus didn't reach out their hand and touch me so that now I would also have the same. I didn't obtain a Get-Into-Heaven-Free pass because generations of my family had attended the same church for close to 70 years. I want this to be very clear before moving on because I believe that too many people, including those in my own family, might still be holding out these sorts of hopes about their own salvation. Maybe because someone they know and love made the decision to follow Christ at some point in their past, they feel that they somehow get to ride those coat tails all the way to the Pearly Gates. Man, how I wish it were that simple. However, as most of you who are still reading know, salvation is a truly personal event that only takes place between one person and their Creator. No one else is invited to that party. It is between one heart and one God. Afterwards there is celebration from the masses, but the event itself is a one to one transaction.

What's my point? Do not assume that you are saved because you too "grew up in church." Not to be insensitive, but so what? If a doctor's son grows up in and around the hospital where his father works, is he automatically a doctor too? Of course not. Those that grow up in and around the church where their family attends are not automatically Christians. Consciously choosing to follow Christ makes us Christians and there are literally thousands of "church-going folk" out there walking around without one shred of evidence of Christ in their lives. As my pastor alluded to in a recent sermon, no one has an authentic encounter with Jesus Christ and leaves with their life looking the exact same. Jesus changes the entire game. He changes every thought, word and deed and yes, the process is rarely overnight. But here's the whole evidence thing I mentioned above... with authentically saved people, there is always proof that a process exists and it is clearly visible that something has taken place. Same 'ol, same 'ol just won't do anymore because there has been a heart shift of monumental proportions that can not be denied or ignored any longer. That is true repentance. That is true regeneration. That is true salvation.

Back to my plaguing thoughts. Why me? When God orchestrated the change in my heart leading to my salvation back in my late 20's, it was fast and furious. The things I participated in and thought none the wiser of were almost instantaneously made to feel foreign and no longer pleasurable. It was an internal turning on of a light that seemed to change my whole world in a second flat. Let me interject that my questioning isn't from a place of irreverent indifference. I thank God daily for this very miracle and the new direction my life took as a result of it. But here's the thing, now that I have been working with teenagers and young women for the past several years sharing my story and teaching them in Life Groups, I'm always wrestling with what to do and how to help those who are still waiting for their own internal light to come on. How do I convince someone of the damage their choice sin is causing when that someone is still receiving nothing but sheer enjoyment from that same sin? Oh I know the bible verses and the stories and I share them in earnest, but it's troubling when it feels like they fall on deaf ears. Sometimes I think it's just an age thing. God clearly had his timing picked out just right for me and it was well after my adolescent stupidity. But then I know plenty of women who from birth it seems have chosen to follow Jesus and only Jesus to the complete detriment of their wild oats. They just didn't even feel the need to sow them. Like, at all. I so wish I could relate. So, my age theory goes out the window. What I am left with and what I ultimately know to be the truth is that God calls hearts toward His Son, Jesus, for salvation at precisely the perfect moment for that individual and only He knows exactly when that is. Does it frustrate my prayer life at times? Uh hu. Try zealously praying for someone to be made aware of and repulsed by their own sin leading them to ask for forgiveness and salvation over and over again for years with seemingly no turning point in sight and you will understand what I am talking about. But, the same God who is responsible for literally plucking my feet out of the miry clay will, in His perfectly timed sovereignty, do the same for those I pray for should they decide to respond. Turns out beating people over the head with a bible really doesn't work, dang it. That would be so much easier and quite frankly cathartic for the beater as well. Alas, we must continue our fervency in prayer and the teaching of truth and then just watch and wait for the Master to work.

I waited patiently for the Lord;

And He inclined to me and heard my cry.

He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay,

And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God;

Many will see and fear

And will trust in the Lord.

Psalm 40:1-3

Also plaguing is the hardship of the lingering sin that continues to rear it's nasty snake-like head in the lives of those who are saved. The light has come on. The sin has been revealed, repented of and completely forgiven. But the revelation/repentance themselves haven't translated into repulsion yet. Why oh why hasn't it become repulsion yet, God? Wouldn't it be so much easier for us if you would just take every lingering impulse away? Why do we have to continue to be torn and twisted and churned around in the tension of following you and keeping that sin ever in our peripheral vision? And then it hits me time and time again. We are His works in progress and like any amazing masterpiece, we are worth the effort it takes to bring us to perfection. Can it be true that in all the time we spend struggling with that persistent thorn, God is up there clapping, waving and cheering for us like the best parent in the world when they watch their child struggle through something they are facing? Just like that mom who cries silent tears because her son is facing a giant and she knows he has to do it alone to truly triumph. Just like that dad who is torn up inside watching his girl navigate a tough situation that she has to figure out on her own in order to truly grow. Could it be that God is doing the same thing for us and He is allowing us to go through it all because just like that mother's son and that father's daughter, ALL of us are coming out on the other side stronger because of the trial? Every single time we are one step closer to our perfected selves that will one day stand in the presence of Jesus. I don't know about you, but that makes me all sorts of teary-eyed. Lord, let it be so.

This brings me to the greater point of my post. Acting the miracle. I can not take credit for that phrase as I found it while doing some reading a while back on the DesiringGod.com website. In fact, I went looking for the article with that phrase as the title after seeing a reference to it in Jackie Hill Perry's amazing book, Gay Girl, Good God. I highly recommend finding the article on the website and reading it for yourself, but I want to paraphrase what I gleaned from it here as well. Basically this: God performs miracles in our lives, we act the miracles that were performed. In other words, our salvation is no question a miracle straight from God in heaven and having received that miracle of salvation through faith in Jesus, we have a responsibility now to act out the miracle. How? By using our Holy Spirit empowered wills to fight our sin to the death. You don't always feel like you even have a Holy Spirit empowered will, you say? I get it. I really do. However, that is not the truth. With your salvation came a power so absolute it will give you every tool needed to strap on your gloves and start swinging for all you're worth. All you have to do is ask for it each and every morning before your feet hit the ground and it's yours for the taking. Now, we shouldn't be shocked if we feel less and less able to tap into this power if we find ourselves intentionally or unintentionally withdrawing from God's daily presence. Are you spending time in the Word? Are you fervently praying? Are you setting aside time for worship service every week? Are you spending time with other believers and allowing them to pour into you as you pour into them? If not, you will struggle to act your miracle.

Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

James 4:7-8

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Philippians 2:12-13

We must forever draw near to God. That is on us. Then, without fail, He will draw near to us. It isn't the other way around. We humbly, but confidently approach and He lovingly responds by filling us up with everything we need to fight that day. Everything we need to resist and resist and resist the devil until he flees from us. Everything we need to ACT our miracles and WORK OUT our salvation. So good, right? I wish I had thought of that phrase myself, but John Piper knows a thing or two about this stuff I believe.

I'll leave you with this. We may grow weary of fighting with our temptations, but take heart in knowing that the fight itself is evidence of our salvation! It's our regenerated, Jesus-occupied hearts that even recognize sin as sin and react with fight or flight. We no longer live in the darkness where just giving ourselves over to something is acceptable because to fight it makes no sense. We must run the race with endurance all the while fixing our eyes on the prize! We must not lose heart, but keep pressing on because heaven literally awaits. 

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith

Hebrews 12:2

Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.

Galatians 6:9

Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:12