I have been thinking about my post Your Perspective?? For some reason it has been weighing on my mind. So here is my answer to my question....
Maybe it’s because I am an immoral being trying to walk with a moral God. Maybe it’s because my world, my nature, my natural inclination is to love the world. Maybe it’s because we only follow what we love and in order to follow God I have to give up what I love….me. I mean, I did love myself long before I loved God. And even when I got to the place that I could actually say that I love God, and accept the truth of His ransomed love, did I really mean it? Was it out of a response of His love to me? Was it authentic? I don’t think we can love God out of our nature, because it is fallen. Our father Adam set that course. I think the only way we can love God is out of a response to his love to us. But in order to do this you have to have a deep belief that God is who he said he is and he did what he said he did and we are who he says we are. I like what Don Miller says about deep belief in his book, Blue Like Jazz:
“The trouble with deep beliefs is that it costs something. And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn’t like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them.”
Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s why I find it so difficult to give up the world and follow God. Because the way of the world is to love me, and like I said, I love me!
I guess the good news is that is doesn’t stop there. That it only begins. I believe this is where we need to be on-foot, in battle, everyday against Satan who wants us to believe in meaningless things for meaningless reasons. Dieing to ourselves and living in Christ is not easy, again because we love ourselves and we love our lives. But this is what Jesus asks us to do, and in return He promises to give us a new life, and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). Did you catch that? More abundantly! Jesus is promising us a new life that is better than the one we are trying to build ourselves. Now you have to be careful here, because our nature has a tendency to frame this promise with H.W.P. (Health, Wealth and Prosperity) theology within the environment of what we know…our world. We have to give up what we “think” this new life is that Christ wants to give us and simply trust him to give it to us.
So all I have to do each day is give up my first love – me, and then, live in my true love – Christ, Then maybe I would not find it so hard to respond to Christ. And maybe I will find it easier to give up the world and rather unthinkable to give up God.
