I have gotten really serious in the last few years as to how to truly and really from the root overcome the things that hinder me and the sin that dogs my feet and run the race set before me. (Hebrews 12:1)
I find myself continuing to trip up of the same old things again and again and again.
I have been so diligent in my spiritual life to grown and press on and take hold and become all I made to be. My very name “Emily” means diligent and hard-working.
Below are some thoughts I have been having. It is only the beginnings of what i think will prove to be for me another life message.
It is time to go further.
Onto Further Victory!
Though I have kind of seen and known these things I am learning for most of my life, the pressure to grow and change and overcome things in my life (that comes from the church world) is very strong. “Self help” is very in right now. I don’t think God is into self help. According to the Word, this is filthy rags in His sight.
The ideas of putting more and more effort into changing myself has been ingrained into me. The thought that my short comings are because I haven’t tried hard enough to apply and act on the Word I know has been a strong primary thought for my whole life. People talk of working on things in their life that aren’t yet right. They make resolution after resolution to change, but do they really change? Sometimes temporarily, but not really.
I have felt like a misfit and an outcast, insufficient and lacking – not just because of lies and inner thoughts I have held about myself but because people have treated me that way. They don’t know what to do with quiet people; they treat them as inferior.
Until recently I have never been around people who could see the “gold” in me and help uncover it and pull it out. It is like they could only see what they think are faults and shortcomings, and kind of put me in the shy and quiet, almost useless box.
Galatians 3:2-3 (MSG) – Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!
Phillips NT – Did you receive the Spirit of God by trying to keep the Law or by believing the message of the Gospel? Surely you can’t be so idiotic as to think that a man begins his spiritual life in the Spirit and then completes it by reverting to outward observances? Has all your painful experience brought you nowhere? I simply cannot believe it of you! Does God, who gives you his Spirit and works miracles among you, do these things because you have obeyed the Law or because you have believed the Gospel? Ask yourselves that.
I didn’t start my new life by working my head off to please God. No. I started by responding to God’s message to me. I believed and received what He provided.
Am I so idiotic as to think that I begin my spiritual life in the Spirit and then complete it by reverting to outward observances?
I started by believing the message of Christ, I don’t become perfect by my own human effort.
I will STOP the craziness. Only crazy people would think they would complete by their own efforts what was begun by God.
All of my life as I Christian, I have been taught to see who He has made me, what He has done for me, and act as if it is true. I was taught, God said “fear not”, so don’t fear. You don’t have to. If they only knew the extreme efforts I have put into acting against fear…. I have got it under control, actually thought I had the victory – but the Lord has shown me lately that fear is still lurking beneath the surface ready to jump out and pounce.
The victories I have gained over fear have been by working my head off to make myself as free as I see in the Word that I am.
I have been like the idiotic one reverting to outward observances to walk in the freedom He has given me. I have tried to become perfect by my own human efforts – and oh how much effort, how much diligence I have put into overcoming all that hinders me.
I have put the weight of my victory on my ability to act free and not yield to the old fears and insecurities instead of on God.
I thank God this has enabled me to live as a normal person. From the outside I mostly look good. But I find that it hasn’t gotten the true, lasting, permanent victory over the inner fears and feelings of insecurity; it has only controlled them – and that only when I am emotionally and spiritually strong enough to control them.
Now, I WILL STOP THE CRAZINESS! Because only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God.
It is the will of God that I am truly and really free down to the depths of my being. The roots that keep trying to grow back can actually be gone!
How this all works I don’t quite yet know. But it is not in my own strength or will power to resist the old impulses. It is not in trusting myself.
Philippians 2:12-13 (Amplified) – Therefore, my dear ones, as you have always obeyed [my suggestions], so now, not only in my presence but much more because I am absent, work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ). [Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.
But the question is, do I just let go of all I have learned to walk in that has enabled me to live in the victory level I have attained? Or do I keep walking in what I have learned and trust Him to teach me more?
After asking this question, the below scripture came to mind.
Philippians 3:15-16 (AMP) – So let those [of us] who are spiritually mature and full-grown have this mind and hold these convictions; and if in any respect you have a different attitude of mind, God will make that clear to you also. Only let us hold true to what we have already attained and walk and order our lives by that.
Philippians 3:9-11 (AMP) – And that I may be found and known as in Him, not having any righteousness that can be called my own, based on my obedience to the Law’s demands, but possessing that [genuine righteousness] which comes through faith in Christ (the Anointed One), the [truly] right standing with God, which comes from God by [saving] faith. [For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] That if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body].
Philippians 3:12-14 (AMP) – Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own. I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward.
So I am pressing on. I trust that I will learn more and more as I go after true, complete freedom down to the very roots of my being. To hear what I learn, you’ll have to keep coming back and reading.
Hebrews 7:25 (AMP) – Therefore He is able also to save to the uttermost (completely, perfectly, finally, and for all time and eternity) those who come to God through Him, since He is always living to make petition to God and intercede with Him and intervene for them.
