Hidden with Christ in God

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I know that this seems like a strange image to use on a blog, but honestly, it was the closest thing that I could find to convey the message of today's blog: Hidden with Christ in God.

This is a concept that we likely know, but it is so often not lived out by believers.  I know this on a personal level.  

You see, Paul has told us in Colossians 3:3 that we "have died and [our]  life is hidden with Christ in God."  The problem is two-fold in my walk with the Lord.  I don't live like I am dead, and I often can be seen more by the world than Christ can.  Can you relate?

In this short verse there exists both conflict for my flesh, to live as though I am dead to myself, and victory for the Spirit within me, as I discover the joy of allowing Christ to live His life through me.  

The struggle is found for me in living this verse out daily.  I know my need to die daily, yet as the moments of each day present themselves, the easy ones and the difficult ones, I am prone to forget that I am supposed be dead.  Literally I have been declared dead, yet I, more often than not, discover that my will, my wants, my desires, my opinions are quite alive and at work in me.  I forget in most moments that Jesus is the light that is to be shown out of me.  It is His light, and not me, that is to be the brightest.  Me and my flesh should be so dead that I appear to be out of focus, while the light of Christ should be able to be most clearly seen.

The  resolution to the conflict in my flesh of trying to remain alive can only be in living my life hidden, for it is no longer my life that is relevant, but His as it comes forth out of me.  His life flowing out of me is what should be in clear focus to the world around me.  As a converted believer, I no longer have a life of my own to live.  I am DEAD, and my dead life is now overshadowed by the life of Christ within me!

Look back at the picture and ask yourself the questions it now begs of you.  Are you the brightest and most in-focus part of the picture, or are the works Jesus is doing through you what the world can clearly make out?  Are you in clear focus, or is the Light of the world?  Is the image of your flesh fading away is it gives way to the life of Christ?

My prayer today is that I will be so surrendered, and then so obedient, that the world will cease to see me, but only my Savior at work in a vessel wholly yielded to Him.  

Consider making that your prayer as well.  What difference would it make in your family, city, state, country, and world if you lived life dead, and you were hidden away by the Lord of your life?

What Are You Looking At?

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Numbers 13: 25-33

"What are you looking at, My Precious One?  What is it that you see that is making you draw back from the things I am calling you to do?  Do you see that what you are seeing is not what I see?  Your spiritual vision is both blurry and OUT OF FOCUS!

His words to me are like a daggers to my heart.  I long to follow My Lord where He leads me, but I am finding, right now, that my gaze seems to fall, far too often,  on the giants of my life.  While I am sure that God is able to do the "exceedingly abundant works" in and through me, my thoughts are consumed with what a "grasshopper" I am among my perceived giants.  While seeing my giants I am becoming more fully aware that what my weak eyes behold is not at all what God sees.

The Hebrews had the same problem.  It was time to enter into the land that God had promised them, but instead of believing that that land would be good for them as God had told them, and obeying His call to take the land as their own, they came up with their own "brilliant" idea.  Instead of entering in as an army of 603,550 able-bodied warriors (more than 1/2 a million!), as Numbers 1:46 records, the great plan of the people was to send in 12 men . . . 12 men!  Twelve men versus a half-million men with the Ark of the Covenant, the very Presence of God, leading the way!  Their 12 men brought their unbelief back from the Promised Land, but now it was in full bloom.  Though they had seen the great blessings of the land, the only thing that they truly were looking at were the giant men of the land.  Everything else was out of focus, but to them, the giants were the sharp image that was engraved on their unbelieving minds.  And they brought that picture into clear focus for all of the Hebrews.

"Why didn't they believe what I had already told them?  Why did they choose unbelief instead of faith?  They were afraid!  Don't you see that you are doing the same thing?  I have called you to a ministry, and I have shown you what the ministry will be.  Will you now come up with your own plan of attack that comes from a place of fear, a place that forgets or disbelieves Me and all I have let you see?"

Again, His painful questions penetrate my heart at just the place that my fear resides.  As I contemplate what He is saying to me, I am beginning to see with His eyes my own fear of the unknown, what my "entering in" is to look like, what the exact plan is to be when I cross into the borders, and the deadly "what if I fail?".   These are my giants that are holding me back, the biggest one being  my need to know the blueprint of His plan.  This is fear cloaked in control.

I don't know where this quote came from, but it has been taped to my bathroom mirror for several years now.  It has ministered to me on several occasions, especially during my book-writing days, but this morning it is an empowered banner that beckons me back to faith. His call to me is to step away from my own unbelief, to fall on my knees, and surrender all my "plans" and all my "giants"  to Him in faith that He will accomplish what He has said He will do.  I pray it is as much of a  blessing to you today as it is to me.

"Never give up on anything God has told you to believe for; never quit doing anything He has clearly shown you to do.  Your diligence will pay off with a blessing from God."

"Now, go My Precious One, and see what I see.  Focus on that!  'For I know the plans I have for you . . . plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope!'"  (Jeremiah 29:11)