Time to Grow Up

I absolutely love the way the Holy Spirit puts something on your heart through the Word of God and then that same theme shows up in different ways throughout your day, week, or your month.  Take for example the urging I have had over the past month just to be a better person.  Not thinking of myself more highly than I ought to think, but living to be the person God has destined me to be.  I realized a long time ago that I may never meet certain people's expectations of me but if I am living my life to be the person God wants me to be than that is what really matters.  The first question I had when this thought came to mind was "How?'  For so many years I have lived my life trying to be what others expected of me, I knew it would be difficult to erase that way of thinking from my mind.  The second thought that crossed my mind was that 'it could be done', but I needed help.  So I prayed. 

There is an awesome feeling when you realize that you can do nothing in and of your own strength.  That moment when you know that God has carefully orchestrated your life for such a time as this.  This does not have to be a time where you are in front of hundreds or thousands of people.  It may just be the moment when you realize that your children are watching you constantly and you just want to be better for them since God has entrusted their lives in your hands. The time when you look at those around you and reevaluate do they add or take away from the value of your life?  It's the time when you step into the reality of your salvation.  What do I mean by this?  The time when you realize you are just a sinner saved by grace and if it had not been for the Lord on your side, where would you be?  That moment when you become overwhelmed by the goodness of Jesus and at the same time you feel ashamed because of the way you have let Him down.  When you realize that it's time to grow up.  You don't want to be that Christian demonstrating the same behaviors you did when you were a babe in Christ. 

I Peter 2:1-3 says, 'So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.  Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grown up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good'. (ESV)

Bottom line is this, your spiritual life cannot grow unless some behaviors are changed.  There is a purging process that must take place and then the Word can do it's work.  What does it mean to purge? It means 'to remove (impurities and other elements) by or as if by cleansing'.  You have to get rid of some things...things that come from deep down within.  This is not the easiest process but it is a necessary process.  And for me, I wanted to do it.  After being raised in the church and then living my own life's experience and seeing how God carried me through it is the least I could do.  It is not enough to go to church Sunday after Sunday and still remain the same. To sit through 'the rightly divided word of truth' only to walk to the parking lot talking about as many people as possible, not even the preacher is off limits.   To witness firsthand the goodness of the Lord in your life and continue to have Him as an option instead of number one. I remember my Pastor saying that spiritual maturity had nothing to do with age. How true!  I especially like the way the study notes in the MacArthur Study Bible put it. 'Spiritual growth is always marked by a craving for and a delight in God's word with the intensity with which a baby craves milk'.  When something is good to you, you tend to want more and more of it.  That is what I believe Peter meant in this passage of scripture. You finally come to the conclusion that you can't make it without God.  You actively work with not against the purging process.  You begin to hate sin as God does.  You spend less time trying to expose the sin in others. You read more and more of His Word, craving it as a newborn baby does milk, allowing it to expose the sin in your life so that you can confess it and turn away from it.  You let the Word do the work!

Heavenly Father I come to you today thanking You and praising You for your goodness to me.  Your grace that saw me as a wretch undone and yet you extended your hand of mercy and gave me salvation so that I would have the right to the tree of life. Today, Lord I have but one simple request, Lord I want to be a Christian in my heart.  Purge me with hysop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow.  I'm tired of my sinful ways and ask you to remove anything that is not like you.  Help me to be a steward of the Word so that I can be an example to others.  Help me also never to think of myself more highly than I ought to think.  Instead as You change my life, let me reach back and help others.  All these things I ask in Your name Jesus Amen.