so simple in theory but impossible

The essence of our walk with Christ is in a word "Christ-likeness."

In a few more simple words it is holiness, righteousness, godliness, love and obedience.

Christ was all of those things so it is simpler to say "Christ-likeness." Our walk and relationship with Christ is so simple to summarize. When we do the things Christ did we are as we should be. We are to be obedient to the Word and to God. We are to be holy as He is Holy. We are to be the light and salt and strive for His righteousness. When we are doing all of these things we fulfill our duties as Christians.

That is it. That is all there is to it. Really it is so simple.
Aye, but difficult, albeit impossible without help.

And not just any help, but we have to have help from God. For we are fallen. We are man of depravity. We cannot accomplish true righteousness, true love, true godliness... not without God. We are not as we should be. We are fallen.

So first surrender.

Yes if we want the simple faith and the true Christ-likeness. We must first give up.

We must die to our own self, all our motives, dreams, desires and fall at His feat! We must give it all to Him who sits on the High Throne. We must give it all to Him who came to die so that we could learn to die to ourselves and so we could learn what true love really is and we could have it.

We surrender our will. We surrender our hearts. We surrender first in salvation. And even after we are surrendered to Christ as Lord of our lives....when we are no longer under the power and slavery of sin....we must still surrender daily. WE surrender constantly in prayer and in actions. we worship God in all things we do.

We learn to love. We learn to live in the Holy Spirit. We learn to be holy, but only when we are willing to let go of all we are and let God in. Let God be first. Let God have His will and His way.

So simple but profound. Nothing new but so difficult and true! Amen! Amen

now where Adam left you; know where the Spirit of God has placed you. Do not know either of these so exclusively as to forget the other. Spurgeon

Where I am growing

I am growing towards a call to holiness and godliness. My heart cries out to God for holiness, obviously I am striving but not in the least perfect. I even cry a little as I remember how vulnerable and weak I am as a minister. I am to uphold these high standards for God and his glory yet I fail him. I must die to myself and surrender completely to God for this to even work. In my own power I am not strong enough to be holy yet I desire to be. It is by faith alone through the work of the Holy Spirit, it is not a work of myself but by the grace of God we are free. I just preached on this sort of integrity of the man of God. The holiness we are striving for.

I know I am guilty of slacking off here. I used to go out on walks just to see where the Holy Spirit would take me and talk to whoever He led me to talk to, for evangelism. Here now at our church we have been talking about ways to evangelize in our community now for a year or two but we have yet to actually take the initiative and do something! It should be our primary mission! And that is not entirely true because we do preach the Gospel and have special events highlighting the Gospel I just feel that I am slacking off personally sharing.

I feel that I am striving to have integrity and courage. I don't always have the kind of zeal. I want to be consumed with love for Christ. Sometimes I let my own feelings and plan and logic consume me instead. What a silly mistake. Sometimes I do die out in the routine work of every day. I do scatter myself and try to be good at all things. While I should do all things for the glory of God and with excellence I need to delegate and relax and just focus on laying everything at his dear feet who bled and died for me! Amen! When I surrender all to Him and focus on what he wants me doing, not only do I have enough energy to complete it well I have zeal also that He provides!