Having been part
of a Church where I was taught to learn to mimic godly behavior and I was also
taught to pray for this Christian life, I could not reconcile what was going on
in my life when God decided to move in and suddenly, inwardly, this life had
become such a dynamic life. I was conscious of the fact that I had something
alive in me; something was new inside of me. If it was not for the incomparable
gentleness of the Holy Spirit, I would have been more apprehensive thinking
that I was on my way of becoming schizophrenic. I simply could not understand
why I was living literally with someone inside me.
It was only after I
stumbled on A.W.Tozer book, “The Pursuit of God” that this Christian life made
sense to me. Through it, I understood the realness of this life. I also
understood, having surrendered my life completely, with no conditions and no
reservations, few months back meant that I stopped praying for this life to happen
to me. Instead I moved in to claim it through believing so that I could become
part of it. Through reading Tozer’s book it felt as if my Christian life thus
far was like I was holding onto half a dozen pieces of a puzzle, then someone
came and said here is the box with all the other pieces. When I opened the box
to put the half a dozen pieces I was holding onto, I found the puzzle was so
big with millions of pieces. While the half a dozen pieces I was holding onto
were important to complete the puzzle, but I would have never known what this
puzzle was about with my few pieces.
You would make a
mistake to think that this is no longer Salvation by grace. Because while I was
sitting in the pews, learning to put into practice some sort of man made
Christianity, I had never heard a sermon on surrendering to God, I had no idea that
Christians could surrender to God either. I knew nothing of God, yet He stirred
my heart. He provoked something in me that demanded an answer. In fact, I was
so far from Him that even His stirring seemed unreal. What God provoked in me was so faint I was still
looking for help to understand, so, I talked to pastors and elders. In every case
I was dismissed. Only one of the elder dared to say something and it would have
been better not to have said anything at all because the answer I received was
to make fun of me with my surrendering idea.
When I share with
you how spiritually blinded people in my Church was and how stupid I was, I do
not do it because I take pleasure in it. Not that I want to belittle people
that I love dearly. I share because it is not about me or them. I top the cake
when it comes to stupidity. In fact, when I examine myself and see how deep I
was in my stupidity, and how deep the depth of my spiritual darkness was, I
cannot help but being grateful that He got hold of me in spite of
me. When God delivers us from certain situations, He intends for us to share
the blessings. At the end of the day, it is not about me or the ego of the leaders
of the Church I used to attend. It is about Him!
Through going with
Him and living my life in Him, I have learned, each step I took in surrender, claiming
the holy life to make it my own, claiming oneness with Him, learning to be a
disciple, beholding the truth, grow in spiritual maturity etc, are all One Blessed Continuous String of Grace. All the after effect of Salvation that I
have received and continue to receive from Him, are the product of the work
Christ has done on the cross. I was not aware of them, nor that I knew how to
get anyone of these blessings to be inwardly mine. When we say “the old
has passed away and behold everything new” this newness of life is
deeper than we can possibly imagine and it continues daily throughout our earthly pilgrimage.
Beloved, at one
point, we have to stop praying this life in us, stop hiding behind excuses, stop
blaming our leaders, and stop trying to corner God to make Salvation fit into
our neat little boxes. I can tell you without a doubt that God will not hold
our religions against us. But, He will certainly hold against us the fact that
we have not found Him was not His fault but our sins of pride, stubbornness and
laziness. BELIEVE! This is the
difference between the first “follow me” Christ said to Peter in Mathew 4:19
and the other “follow Me” in John 21:19 . You cannot deny that Peter had become a
new man to the point He was given to the Master completely and followed boldly
His footsteps with no fear for his own life. He was not perfect, but work in
progress.
It is all
Salvation by grace through faith. We are saved! We are being saved! We will be
saved! Oh! The beauty of it all. – I cannot wait to see Him!
