Yesterday I read this status on Facebook: "To fulfill your God-given purpose in life you must confront your defects of character, see them as stumbling blocks, and begin to remove them." How very wise is the young woman who wrote that! But the complacency with which we view our own defects often keeps us from attacking them, squashing them, annihilating them. We are more prone to glance their direction, look at the trouble they have caused, and dismiss them with a pitiful, "I'm sorry, Lord." And it's not long before they are rearing their ugly heads again in us.
As believers who have received the work of our Savior--His birth, death, resurrection, and ascension to His throne in Heaven--we have made a commitment to Him. It is our part of the covenant that was made between Jesus and us. That covenant agreement, whether we knew it or not, is to allow the Holy Spirit to work in us so that we will be prepared for Heaven. We have believed, and now we must be sanctified, in order to be glorified in Heaven.
We seem to understand the first part really well. Jesus died in our place, as our substitution, and because He rose from the dead, He opened a way to Heaven for us. The second part we seem to only minimally understand. Therefore, God looks down on us and sees us in an endless struggle to overcome our individual character deficits--our daily sins. For most Christians, they cannot truthfully claim Christ as Lord, because He is not. Of the third part, living in the place where Jesus is Savior, Lord, and PRIEST-KING, we clearly have little or no understanding of Him in this way. Those who do, know what it is like to live everyday in the presence of God and behave accordingly.
Our character deficits are not eradicated when we become believers. They are transformed in to godly character only as we begin to know Christ as Lord, and as we build relationship with His Spirit within us. It is the Spirit who is the Power by which we will be changed into the image of Christ, perfecting us and making us complete in Him. When we are at this place on our spiritual journey, our playground of faith becomes the classroom of instruction. It is here that we will learn to walk by the Spirit, completely under His control, learn to apply the word to our lives, and learn to worship God in Spirit and in truth! That IS true worship! And others will begin to see our obedience where defects once resided.
My comment back to my wise friend?
"So true! We must learn to yield to the Spirit within us. It is His job to fit us for Heaven, but He must find us surrendered to Him in order for Him to work. The issue for us is to know where we fall short, and then allow the Spirit to pluck the rotten fruit from our branches!"
What is the rotten fruit that dangles right now from your branch? Can you identify it? Are you willing to surrender to the pruning process that the Holy Spirit desperately wants to do in your heart so that you can bear His fruit?
Or are you content to live with your character flaws, still playing around on the playground of faith?
