“Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” Ephesians 1:4
The more we walk in true holiness, the more whole we become. When our desire, passion, & pursuit are to honor Him with our lives, He strips us of the world, and He purges us of ourselves. Holiness is a long process. The words “in love” are the key terms that define this process.
As performance oriented people, we are too concerned about accomplishing milestones, rather than allowing God to lead us on a journey of a lifetime!! Deep inside we hope that we can become complete or whole quickly, so we can go about doing His work or fixing others.
The Lord continually reminds us that we can’t solve the world’s problems but we can allow Him to work in us. If God’s will and His kingdom are not established in us, then we can’t influence His kingdom to be established around us. To the level that the Lord has gotten hold of our lives, is the level our lives have the potency to affect change around us. As we grow in Christ-likeness, we become the salt and light that the world needs us to be.
Many times in our Christian Cliché’ we say that we love Jesus, and He is in my heart. The issue is not whether Jesus is in our heart or not, but How much of our heart belongs to Jesus? That’s the essence of our lives. We cannot allow Jesus and self to be the master at the same time. The Lord will continually allow us to get tested, so what is in our heart can get manifested. The Lord will not relent until He has it all. This heart of ours needs to be completely captured by God. Every room, closet, basement belongs to Him. He searches room by room, closet by closet, the basement, and under every unsuspecting good intent until He exposes everything. There is no complete victory until everything that belongs to self, or the enemy, has been either captured or obliterated. No idolatry, no religious piety can stand anymore!!
The central control of our heart must be given over to Jesus. We must apply the cross to our ideas, thoughts, opinions, and past experiences. They are done. It is finished. The authority and the kingdom have been given over to someone more powerful. He is the ruler. He sets the order, and He sets the rules. Anything His new government establishes is the order of the day. The old is dead, and has no power, nor authority.
Praise God for His goodness. Praise God for His authority and His power to bring about the change that He can only bring. The Emancipation Proclamation!!!