We try so very hard to come up with the scheme that will allow us to win God's favor and in doing so we nullify the cross and make mockery of the resurrection. We challenge the sovereignty of God and refuse His right to have dominance over all of our lives.
We don't really like God much. We want to just live our lives in comfort and ease singing silly songs about Jesus and playing the game the world offers us. We are weak, sultry, rebellious and stupid - and that's just believers.
There is NO secret to living the successful Christian life. It's written on every page of scripture. We also find the why of our pathetic attempts to live for ourselves while giving lip-service to Him.
OK - hard stuff - and maybe just maybe it's just me. If that is so than Praise God the rest of you are doing so well. Maybe I'm just one among a few who while trusting in His death and resurrection for my salvation have little interest or appreciation of His desire to conform me into the likeness of His Son.
Of course there is only one way to be conformed to Christ and that is to share in His sufferings. He suffered every day in every way and more so than we can ever - ever - comprehend. He suffered and calls us to suffer with Him.
But we don't want to suffer, we just want to be saved. We want a nice cozy road to heaven. We want to just kind of slide right through the gates. but tht is not His plan for any of us.
For some the suffering is great for others the suffereing is common. Those who suffer greatly know Him greatly. Those who suffer "commonly" tend to have a lack of appreciation of the suffering they do experience. They are able to ignore the meaning and purpose of their suffering. It is a light and yet constant suffering that they are able to mediate, medicate and/or minimize and so they miss the blessing and honor for the sake of comfort and acceptance.
In my trial(s) I find that in moments of sweet communion I can accept and appreciate what God is doing in my life. But before me I experience a deep sense of shame and failure and that gives rise to resentment of the trial(s).
God's desires to conform us to the likeness of His Son is a key issue in our lives. do we want it or not? If we do we have to enter the forge.
I have some friends who work a a company that makes tools. Two things are needed to forge those tools into useful and dependable tools (upon which lives depend). It takes heat and force. The metal they use comes prepared for forging. All the trash has been removed - there is no dross left - it is ready for the forge. Then are with the purifying process heat - very high heat is applied to make the metal pliable. then great force is applied to hammer the metal into the tool. The force is so great that "hammed" has to have a special foundation and the whole plant shakes with each blow of the hammer. But the heat and the hammering produces the desired tool.
Christ has purified us by His blood. Yes we still have to wrestle with the evil principle that remains but my point is that while we wrestle with that remaining flaw He is busy heating and hammering that we might be forged into the tools He desires us to be.
Yeah, all analogies have problems but I think that we will do well to look at His conforming us are necessitating the heat and the hammering.
Those of you who know me know I like to keep things simple or as my guy Alistair Begg says I like to stick to the, "main things and the plain things." So here you go brothers and sisters - a simple "secret" to living the life and being conformed -
Joshua 1:6-9 NASB
"Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. [7] "Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. [8] "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. [9] "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."
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