Looking back at the blog over the past few months, we have talked about how to change our perspective, God's view of life and the "unexpected," and the process of transformation. Today's blog is a quick look back at these posts and a highlight of the most important takeaways.
God wants you to get to His end of His “telescope.” He wants to get you there as rapidly as you are willing. He wants you to experience the abundant life Jesus offers. This comes from knowing Him and by seeing and living life His way. And this is accomplished as we repeatedly cooperate with God through the Transformation Cycle of repenting and believing.
So, as we look forward in our lives, what are you doing proactively to seek the transformation that will get you to where God wants to take you? Are you just waiting passively for God to bring it to you? Are you just “showing up” through church activities? Or are you meeting with a disciplemaker who sees and lives life God’s way? If not, are you earnestly praying for God to lead you to such a person? What’s it worth to you to experience God’s best?
What are you waiting for?
Here are two short devotionals from some of my favorite books that exemplify the blog topics of the past few months.
The Assigning of the Call from My Utmost for His Highest
I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church . . . —Colossians 1:24
We take our own spiritual consecration and try to make it into a call of God, but when we get right with Him He brushes all this aside. Then He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be His call for us. And for one radiant, flashing moment we see His purpose, and we say, “Here am I! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8).
This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us. We say, “If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way, then I wouldn’t object!” But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object. Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed—you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.
I wonder what finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you? Have you been as hard as a marble and escaped? If you are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you anyway, the wine produced would have been remarkably bitter. To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children.
Abundant Living from Jesus Calling
I (Jesus) want you to live this day abundantly, seeing all there is to see, doing all there is to do. Don’t be distracted by future concerns. Leave them to Me! Each day of life is a glorious gift, but so few people know how to live within the confines of today. Much of their energy for abundant living spills over the time line into tomorrow’s worries or past regrets. Their remaining energy is sufficient only for limping through the day, not for living it to the full. I am training you to keep your focus on My Presence in the present. This is how to receive abundant Life, which flows freely from My throne of grace.
Check back next month as we talk about our spiritual growth and disciplemaking!