When God calls us, He calls us with full knowledge of who we are. He knows all our idiosyncrasies, our weakness, our vices, our kryptonite, our strengths, our vulnerabilities, He knows EVERYTHING. Yet, He still chose us and He keeps choosing us over and over and over again! He doesn’t change His mind about us! The sooner we become acutely aware and extremely conscious of that, the more quickly we will die to self, live for Christ, and live on purpose, for and through Him.
The more Christocentric we become, the more aware we are of Him, His presence, the way He speaks and the way He works in, through and for us. Being more aware of all of this doesn’t mean we suddenly become perfect and sinless. It is also not a license for blatant sinful living. However, it does free us from condemnation because we know His character and we understand our heart posture towards Him. Now intentions are not everything. It is not sufficient to intend to do good. We must do good. However, when God called us, He knew the unfolding of our lives would be exactly what it is. Absolutely nothing takes Him by surprise and that is why our qualification for being called is not innate to us. It is solely dependent on Him. It is Christ in us that allows us to walk in and on purpose.
Christocentric living means we die to self and become alive to Christ. We acknowledge our shortcomings. We are aware of our triggers and vulnerabilities. We know what our strengths are and the innate giftings that we possess. Notwithstanding, we don’t base our identities on those things. Our ability to live for Christ, and do so righteously and boldly, is not defined by that. So the trick of the enemy is to get us to focus on ourselves. And yes, we must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling – that is a biblical command. However, we must constantly look inward, past ourselves, to the Christ Who lives in us, to see ourselves as He sees us.
So when we falter, not if, but when, we know where to go. We don’t live in condemnation. We go back to Abba and ask for strategy, wisdom and instructions on how to overcome. And we repeat the process until we’ve overcome that particular weakness. All our lives we will have to be doing this. Yes we mature, but because the sin nature remains in us we will still struggle with some things. That is okay. That is why His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Ensure our hearts are right before God. Cultivate quiet time with Him. Learn His voice to us in each season and understand that although the Bible dictates how we should walk, our individual expression of that walk will be unique. None of us are fully alike therefore our walk with God cannot be like anybody else’s. Let us stop boxing ourselves in and let us stop boxing God in as well. God died to make us free, why do we insist on enslaving ourselves to tradition? We’ve become modern day Pharisees, creating laws that we know we cannot keep in and of ourselves. And then we get into this nasty devilish cycle of guilt, shame, hiding, and cowering in fear; when all God wants to do is love us and live out loud through us!
Let us embrace His love for us and love Him in return. When we love someone, we do everything we can to avoid hurting them. Same with God. The more Christocentric we are, the more revelation of His love we receive and walk in. The more we walk in love, the less we sin not because the sin nature doesn’t reside in us still. But because the love of God has truly been shed abroad in our hearts. And because we are intentional about our relationship with Him, we begin to manifest Who we’ve come to embrace, and the One with Whom we intentionally spend our time.
So, will you choose to stop living a life led by fear and pride? Will you stop being a Pharisee and break out of the cycle of slavery? Will you choose to live a life centered on Christ? What will that look like for you?
GMW