Monday, September 21, 2009

Looking Away Toward Jesus

Psalm 36:9 For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.


More times then not men and women who truly love God seek Holiness by their own hands. They say to themselves “Because I love God I must stop (whatever sin they have) and give my life totally to God.” And this is a very honorable desire to give your life for God totally. The problem arise in the misconception that we can consecrate ourselves to God.
 in our own strength. Anyone that has tried to rightly and failed know the frustration of self consecration.

One step of self-consecration is called introspective. With introspective we survey all the events of our day keeping what we think is of God and letting go of the things which are not, vowing to repent from the sins of that day.

The problem with this method is that we leave the knowledge of good and bad to be discerned by our own heart and mind. But Psalm 19:12 asks “Who can discern his errors not one of us, because even if it is our will to do the right thing our heart will not allow us to, it will lie to us, and confuse us into believing we are holy in action when in fact we have become hypocrites in our attempt to be close to God.
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

More importantly when we seek to judge our actions through introspective we are looking inward toward ourselves for answers, and we have shut the door to the light of Jesus Christ. This is what the enemy desire of us, that we should question our actions, our walk with God, and even our salvation!  Satan is the accuser of the brethern and the mind is his playground.

But Hebrews 12:2 says “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” the Amplified Bible give a much better understanding of this simple yet ever so powerful verse it says “Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus” Here is the power in this verse looking away from self to Jesus.

Here is a very quick fable that may better illuminate what I'm trying to say.


There was a centipede and a frog talking, when the frog asked “which of your one hundred feet moves first when you walk? How do you know which to move next?” the centipede realized that he did not know which foot moved first and when he tried he could not even move just one foot so he became angry and left. “I’m leaving he said,” but when he tried to leave his mind was on his feet and he was stuck right where he was unable to move forward at all.

The centipede loved to bath in the sunlight on his favorite leaf so when the noon sun came without thinking he ran over to his favorite leaf to rest, completely forgetting to analyze which foot to move first.Releasing himself from the paralyzing power of his own mind.

This is true of us saints when we look toward our situation, circumstances, even try to introspectively analyze the events of the day we get stuck, our mind and heart becomes deceitful beyond cure and we can no longer grow in our walk with Christ. we see our imperfection and open the door to our mind so that Satan may have a play date in our heads. Accusing us not so much before God as befor our own limited piety of whom we think we are in Christ.

Oh but when we take our mind off ourselves, and fix our eye on Jesus, wholly blotting out all distractions, then by his light we have freedom to move forward. Then by His (Jesus') light we have light in the circumstances and situation that had been previously darkened.
Psalms 36:9 (KJV) For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.


Setting our mind to do anything to attain holiness is foolish; it is our vanity, piety, egotism, haughtiness, and hate will deceive us into believing that we are doing what is right, or what we are doing is God’s will. Even if we could attain holiness by our own hands how would God get the Glory?


It is the Holy Ghost which lights up the darkest recesses of our heart's ungodliness. If we would but fix our eyes on Christ Jesus then we would, (if it pleases God) obtain one ray of light from the throne of God, which is better than the noonday splendor of illumination created by the wisdom of our own deceitful heart and carnal mind.

Our life is like an 8 ounce cup filled with 8 ounces of all our failures, sin, lust, hidden pains, unforgiveness,  addictions, sexual perversions, egotism and everything other thing about us that is not of God.  But even if there is a faucet of our transgressions pouring directly into that cup (the world) When we drop a 2 ounce stone of Jesus into the cup, there is an expulsive power toward sin. The cup that held 8 ounces of our transgression and sin, can now only hold 6 ounces of our sin. and the more we look toward Jesus the less sin the cup can hold.

This is not to say that we ignore our failures, or sin. But that we seek first the kingdom of God and His Holiness and everything else (even our sanctification) God will add to it



Your Brother in Christ
T. Charves FireSpeaks
 
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