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Looking to Jesus to Live = Miraculously Doing Right
On days that I humble myself in these twelve ways, and do my best to look to Jesus to live, I find myself miraculously doing right, doing well, without striving to do right or even trying to avoid “not-right” behavior. I find, that this change of heart, is a gift that happens automatically as I express my every thought to my Friend and Savior. In other words, I am like an observer, watching my disposition be changed, not by anything I’m doing for Him, but because of what He is doing in me. I find myself living through my day without my addictive behavior without fearing or fighting to do so.
Let me try to give you a metaphor or comparison that may convey what it means to be so “consumed in Christ” that you are automatically inclined to “always remember Him” and thus “have His Spirit to be with [you]”:
Have you ever been waiting to go on a much anticipated trip? Do you remember what it was like the last few days of school before Christmas or summer vacation? Do you remember waiting for Christmas—especially when there’s an almost sure chance that you’re going to get that much-desired gift—that bike or play-station or puppy or pony—whatever the greatest gift you’ve ever imagined to that point in your life? In every one of these situations, did it take any effort to be “consumed” in what you were so excited about and desirous of?
Let me try another comparison that and this may just be the best example of all. Have you ever been so in love with another person that no matter what else you’re doing, you’re thinking about them at the same time? You go about your normal, everyday routine, but in the inner places of your heart and mind, you’re remembering them? And when you lie down at night, you go to sleep thinking of that person, and when you wake up, your first desire is to share this new day with them? That is what it is like to finally enter into the all-consuming, perfect love of (from) Christ and to be consumed in love for Him. No one can teach us how to love like He can.
We love him, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19, emphasis added.)
We “catch” the ability to love as He loves, by being consumed in the reality of His love for us. All our mortal cravings and strivings are a counterfeit of this love.
[Continued tomorrow]
~Colleen H.
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