Awake My Heart

A fog of self and worried doubt
Descends upon my mind in drought.
For from Your Word I've strayed away
And even though it's just a day,
I see You not as who You are
But image only, from afar.
Awake my heart and see His grace
Lord bring me home, to Your embrace.
What joy it is to know You're near
Without the toil of sweat and tear.
You open eyes and turn my head
And from Your Word, I'm fully fed.
Sweet Jesus You are everything
A grateful song my heart doth sing.

"...and be found in Him."

"I want none beside Him. In life He is my life, and in death He shall be the death of death; in poverty Christ is my riches; in sickness He makes my bed; in darkness He is my star, and in brightness He is my sun; He is the manna of the camp in the wilderness, and He shall be the new corn of the host when they come to Canaan. Jesus is to me all grace and no wrath, all truth and no falsehood: and of truth and grace He is full,infinitely full." -C. Spurgeon.

I think Spurgeon knew the secret to the Christian life. This so called "secret" that I speak of is in fact not a secret at all, but we seem to have a hard time "finding" it. I speak of being IN Christ. You see, we as Christians live our lives as if we stand FOR Christ, or BESIDE Him. I think the enemy of our souls wishes for nothing more than we believe this subtle lie. I do not live my life apart from Christ at any time. I do not live FOR Him, I live IN Him. I know what you might be thinking, "That's a matter of semantics..." However, I believe it to be a world of distinction.

Lately God has revealed an ugly amount of pride in my life. I mean I knew I had pride, we ALL have pride right? It's easy for us as Christ followers to admit this. But I was always comfortable with the amount of pride I thought I had...it was manageable in my mind. But when, in His unending(and I mean unending!) grace the Holy Spirit revealed a disgusting refuse of rancid, rotting pride in me, I caught a glimpse. A glimpse was enough. THIS was the root of so much struggle in my life! I lacked victory because I didn't really trust Jesus. Stay with me here... my trust was not anchored in who He is, it was anchored in my ability to claim trust and at the same time deceive myself into actually relying on my own resolve.

And so we come full circle!

I had a revelation that I will never achieve victory or contentment or true repentance, or genuine worship until I am "found in HIM!" Paul talked about this in Philippians 3:

"7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith."

Don't you see the real picture here?? We ar IN Christ, not just living in service to Him! All that I do counts as nothing compared to being in Him! Period! Paul had everything once and he counted it as garbage compared to identifying with Christ, not just on an intellectual level, but with his entire being. He longed for Christ as for nothing else!

Are you struggling with a trial, or sin, or identity? If we are in Christ He is living through us. If you truly belong to Him, you have been made new! And He is infinite! Corrie Ten Boom said,

“No pit is so deep that He is not deeper still; with Jesus even in our darkest moments, the best remains and the very best is yet to be.”

He is absolutely everything my friend! And I live in a worldly prideful fog perusing what looks like a Godly agenda, but in reality is self-centered at heart. SEEK HIM! Please! And please pray that I do the same! He is as near as your breath because He is in you!

In Spirit and in Truth

I don't know if I'm taking this out of context, but it just occurred to me that when Scripture says to "Worship in spirit and in truth" that it is perhaps referring to seeking God with the right motivation. If I seek Christ for any other reason than to know Him, I seek Him falsely. My heart is wicked right? Then it is not likely that my motivation for seeking Christ at any given time could be purely to know Him. Let me give an illustration:

I want to be a better witness at work, so I start to "practice" better Christianity in order that I might gain something. It's subtle, but nevertheless wrong. I don't attain anything good because I strive to be a better Christian. I don't have favor with God or people because I read more, pray more, or serve more. I do want to be a more Godly man, but not in reverse order...What I mean is, everything is a by-product of knowing Christ. I don't follow Him SO THAT I can be a Godly man. I am a Godly man as a result of following Him. This means that my "slavery" to Christ is purely that. I love Him because He loved me first, not so I can show the world what a Christian looks like. I AM a Christian, I don't DO Christianity.

My thoughts should be, "I want to be closer to Jesus, and know Him, and do HIS will." If I seek Christ for my own will to be done i.e. be a better friend, husband or father(last two not yet realized) I fool myself into a false faith.

My affections should be simple. Yet, because I am selfish and prideful, even when I am "following" the Lord it is more often than not for my own agenda to be realized. A good gage for this is to see how you handle adversity, or even and obstacle of any kind. How do you or I react? If it is not as Christ would, then perhaps my devotion to Him is less than genuine. I don't mean to sound harsh, trust me, I am a grace guy. But I want my faith to be real, not conditional. So if I am to "worship Him in spirit and in truth," then my prayer should be for Christ to be my reason for everything. A prayer like:

"Jesus, no matter how this thing in my life works out, let me remain faithful to You."

We all have things we want in life, a better job, a Godly family, a pure relationship. But to attain those things at the expense of true faith is dangerous, and in the end impossible.

"Lord let my devotion to You be true. Let me worship in spirit and in truth. I want You only. If I were the only soul on earth, let my heart still be Yours. Thank You for always being true, and faithful!"