While at children’s camp last week, the speaker created a top ten list of “ways kids can stay pure.” No, he wasn’t specifically talking about sexual purity, he was talking about heart purity – which I’m a big fan of. Naturally, the list made my head want to explode, particularly #5 which was, “Make up your mind to be pure.”A large part of the reason that I think the church in North America is in the trouble she’s in is that we have taught people to join the Resistance. I have said it before on this blog, but “Where there’s a will there’s a way” is an out and out lie, but we keep teaching some form of it from our pulpits, to our children, and heaven help us, even to our teenagers.
Yesterday, we told ourselves the truth about ourselves (or asked someone else to). Many of the fill-in-the-blank obstacles we face are created by feelings and perceived needs. I feel left out. I need to be in charge. I need you to love me. I feel alone. I need to understand. I feel unimportant. I need to be right.
Most of us struggle with being mastered by our feelings – such as anger, fear, sexual attraction, desire for food, need to look good, rehearsing how victimized we are – you get what I mean here? And here’s the root of the problem since we’re not faking:
WE BELIEVE IN OUR HEART OF HEARTS THAT OUR FEELINGS ARE THERE TO BE SATISFIED. Some of us are better at managing the problem no doubt, but most of us live motivated by what we feel, even if we claim we don’t.
But here’s what I think Jesus wants us to realize: THE PERSON WHO HAPPILY LETS GOD BE GOD ACCEPTS THAT FEELINGS DO NOT NECESSARILY EXIST TO BE FULFILLED.
As a matter of fact, once we get our arms around the truth of it, we understand that the most satisfied among us are those who are not dictated by feelings.
So what, we resist them? We fight them? We stifle them? We deny them? How do we rid ourselves of our “fill in the blank?”
The more we open our lives up to God, and embody His gospel, the more His very Person fills us and permeates our insides, ultimately crowding out the feelings that are an obstacle to kingdom life. He both removes and transforms that which is out of control within us, and one of the fruits of His indwelling presence is self-control. Apart from Him, resistance is a myth.
And what feelings will dominate a life that has been inwardly transformed by Christ? Feelings of love, joy, patience – and the underlying peace associated with these feelings – will begin to mark our lives. Not overnight, but over time.
6 comments:
What's the difference between will and self-control?
Great question. Anyone want to take a stab at it before I try?
just a stab at it self-control is more like "stopping" and thinking about it before acting on something .... While Will doesn't really need the stop before acting on something because internally you know where you stand on it already. Like I said just a stab.
Militia207
I think it is an act of our will to cooperate with God - it is a choice we make to "seek ye first the kingdom" even though we do not actually choose God - He chooses us. He is the Great Initiator. We cannot, however, will change in ourselves - we have the power to cooperate (more like a surrender) but not the power to transform.
Self-control is evidence (fruit) of God's indwelling - which happens after we open our lives up to Him. I often talk about my "Holy Spirit muzzle" that guarded me against impulsive speech - but it was God Himself that changed the heart where the impulsive words were born.
If we were sitting over coffee, I would tell you moe about what this looks like in my life. Alas, fodder for a post down the road...
Huh?
One of these days I'm going to be so, umm, motivated, that I get in my car and drive to Philadelphia and demand my coffee and explanation. I probably won't get there until about 2am - I hope that's okay.
"I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them."
— John Stuart Mill
Kind of a M.K. Gandhi style of living.
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