Do I focus on God or do I have self pity in my grief and loss? Sometimes I get very sick of being alone and badly miss the things I loved doing with my sweet husband, but then I ask myself --- Is life all about me? This morning I read a devotion from my favorite (yet most challenging) devotion book, "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers. Again I was so struck with the thought that life IS often about me and what I have to handle for the day - whether it be my grief or the ministry I think God wants me to do, or what I have to do with family or friends. (None of these bad things mind you) but then I read the scripture from John 3 where John the Baptist speaks of his becoming less and Jesus becoming greater. That was John's goal in life to lead others to the Messiah. He called himself the friend of the bridegroom and has great joy as he waits and listens for him. It is all about serving the bridegroom (Jesus) because the bride (all believers) belong to the bridegroom.
Oswald warns that if we only make ourselves look great because of what Christ has done for us we fail as people will look at us and say, "Oh, what a fine person that man or woman is!" When we do this we ourselves are increasing not the bridegroom - Jesus! Oswald states the only way we can avoid this way of thinking is focus on having a moral and vital relationship to Jesus above everything else. If we are maintaining this relationship the rest of our Christian walk will flow the way it should.
Wow this is very hard to live out in daily life. It takes a constant thought process to focus away from me and look to adoring my Savior so I allow Him to have His way. It's frightening even to really let go of my life and let God have full control. I Corinthians 9:24-27 is an awesome text giving an example of this thought. This text reminds me that it takes time to do something well. You can't expect to be an athlete without strict training - we can't be God's vessel without beating our body (and mind) to be God's adoring child, relaxing in His arms so in the end we will win the prize!
Salvation is a free gift of God we don't work for it Christ has done that on the cross (Easter message) - we just simply believe, and because of this we adore and worship Him. This morning I was thinking we are still sons and daughters of Adam and Eve and we would rather eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil than the Tree of Life! I got to thinking did God say they couldn't eat from the Tree of Life before sin entered? I discovered the answer is NO (read Genesis 2)! The only tree they could not eat from was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were banned from the Tree of Life (Genesis 3) after they fell into sin so they wouldn't live forever in this sinful state! Personally I think they didn't even bother to eat from it before they were tempted to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I feel we are still the same we want to take from good and evil and not take the LIFE God offers freely because we want CONTROL.... I confess that is often my reason when I'm honest with myself.
These are my thoughts for this time of waiting in expectation for my home in heaven (where the Tree of Life will be - Revelation 22) and the prize will be to hear: "Well done good and faithful servant".
