Last Sunday I was privileged to get to share my testimony with my church family, and so I will seek to replicate that here while also expanding on some of the ideas that I shared. By way of background, my pastor asked me to be one of two people to address the congregation, and my sharing was to be centered around what God was currently doing in me or what I was learning from Him (the other individual was to share his testimony concerning more of how God had been at work in him in the past). Here it is:
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To give you a bit of framework for how God generally works in me, teaching me how to live rightly before Him, I would say that He does such largely through direct exposure to His Word. Whether through personal Bible study, listening to the exposition of His Word, or reading books by those who write about the Scriptures, it seems that I must have such in a good amount on a regular basis or I will be a distracted and frustrated person. And so, the following three things that God is currently reminding me of/challenging me with flow from such a framework.
First, God has been teaching me that He owns me. This extends beyond (but certainly does not exclude) the fact that I am His creation, but it is something that He is keeping me keenly aware of as I develop as a person in this life. I age, my family expands, I have more stuff all that time, and new responsibilities are continually added while others phase out. But in God's ownership of me, I am reminded that He owns all of me, mind, soul, and body, and that He owns all that He has entrusted to me. I have no rights unto myself, none whatsoever. This is a humbling thought and so a lesson that keeps me from one my greatest enemies: pride. I am constantly having to be aware of pride in my life for it seems always at the door, waiting to be let in. Sneaky as I am, I will seek a kind of self-centered glory in the smallest of things, wanting to appear wise, competent, together, cool, or anything else that is good by nature or at least poses as such. A Scripture that I have chewed on now and then over the past couple years is found in Jeremiah 9:23-24. Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD." Any form of wisdom, might, or riches then that might appear in me I must not boast in as if they have been products of my own manufacturing. Indeed any swelling of pride that I would ever have must never go beyond the great pride in knowing and in some way understanding my great God and King! [Such an attitude would have to be a God-motivated one where I see any movement upward in spirit to be one in which I desire more of Him whom I am so proud to behold.]
This leads well into the second thing that God is teaching me: I am a sinner. It is so very clear to me that I do not live in a constant state of submission to the One who owns me. I have a very rebellious and wicked heart. God has used a man recently as my teacher to help me understand this truth and then kill the sin that is within me. His name is John Owen, a Puritan who lived from 1616-1683. In speaking of the mortification (killing) of sin, he uses very non-trendy sentences like these: Use and exercise yourself to such meditations as may serve to fill you at all times with self-abasement and thoughts of your own vileness. Read that carefully again and then consider the ways in which he says this is to be carried out: 1. Be much in thoughtfulness of the excellency of the majesty of God and your infinite, inconceivable distance from Him. 2. Think much of your unaquaintedness of Him. People don't say things like that much any more which probably speaks volumes to the state we're in of thinking small of God while esteeming ourselves. With these thoughts is another verse I have turned around many times in my mind in recent months, Romans 14:23b: ...Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. There is so much in my life, including my thoughts, words, actions, etc. that does not proceed from faith in my Lord; and ALL those things are sin. I really don't think I'm taking this verse out of context, for Paul states it as a general truth after addressing a specific issue in the Roman church. I am a sinner, saved by grace, who has a very long way to go.
Lastly, all this leads me to the place of saying I need to grow. I don't mean this in the way that it is often said when we ask one another how our devotional time is going to get the common response of, "OK, but not as good as it could be" or the goofy phrase we frame in our home to repel people's exhortation and invoke a form of shallow grace, "Please be patient with me; God isn't finished with me yet." When I say that I need to grow, I feel a sense of urgency as I consider how far I am from where I should be, how much I need to learn, and how short this life is. I have a regular fear of growing more apathetic or less distinct as a Christian as this world presses in around me. I am taken to another passage common in my mind as of late, Ephesians 5:15-17: Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what he will of the Lord is. If I am to walk in wisdom, if I am to understand the Lord's will, then I must grow in the knowledge of Him. This takes me back full circle to where I find myself so in need of exposure to His Word to fuel me toward Him.
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Those were the words in general that I shared, and as I think on them now I pray that I might be God-motivated in submitting to His ownership of me, weeding out the sin in my life that I might be more holy as He is holy (and so know Him more), and grow in Him and toward Him that His glory might be more clearly displayed in and through me.
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