Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Conviction hit me like a ton of bricks.  Not like a cool breeze sweeping across my face in loving gentleness....like a ton of bricks. 

Gentleness is wonderful, but sometimes bricks are very much needed.  I was sitting in a recent woman's conference hearing encouraging words when she pulled out the big guns.

"IN YOUR PURSUIT OF HOLINESS, HAVE YOU LEFT JESUS BEHIND?"

What, of course not!  Leave Jesus behind...no.  I am pursuing holiness and loving Him more.  I'm doing all I can and being involved in "spiritual" things and I am reading my Bible.  How would that be leaving Jesus behind? And then I realized......maybe I had been. 

In this beautiful life the Lord has given me, that I like to sometimes refer to as chaos, I forget to sit at His feet and listen to Him.  I forgot that sometimes it's not about the doing.  And so very often I forget it's not about me.  Why do we pursue holiness?  Why do I?...  Is it for the acceptance?  Is it for the approval? Is it for the check list?   Do I want to be obedient to His voice or go along my holiness journey and hope that Jesus catches up and joins along with me? Or am I pursuing Him out of the depths of a love for Jesus or even a true realization of all He has done for me and how deeply He loves me.

Quite honestly, I don't even want my goal to be about pursuing holiness anymore, because even in that it can become about "my" holiness.  I want "me" to be completely taken out of the equation.  I want to just pursue Jesus.  To know Him in the power of His resurrection.  As Anne Graham Lotz says so frequently, "Just give me Jesus."

Strip all that is me and make everything in my life about You....