I Don’t Want to Do This
“…And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
“I don’t want to do this,” I essentially told two different friends one day. I made myself loud and clear. “I don’t want to move to that location. I don’t want to live in that town. I don’t want to have that kind of property. I don’t want to own my current property though I’m so thankful for it. I don’t want to have or move with this many dogs. I want to adopt two of them out. These are the two.” I sounded like I was at a drive-through fast-food restaurant ordering what I wanted just the way I wanted it. That’s the kind of fast food, me-me-me world we live in, isn’t it? And that’s exactly how some of us are talking to God – if we talk to Him at all. If you’re convicted, you’re most assuredly not alone. But before you think I’m finished relaying my conversations that day, hang in there. Because God has done a mighty amazing work in me all to His glory for His glory.
“But my life doesn’t belong to me anymore,” I told my friends. “Jesus Christ died for me. He purchased me with His blood,” I effectively said. See, I have turned from my lifestyle of sin, placed my faith in Christ as Lord, and turned to God and His ways with the understanding at last of what I next said to my friends. “My life is no longer mine. It is Christ’s. I belong to Christ. I want to go where God sends me to do what He sends me to do no matter how I feel about it.” Amazing. Unbelievable. Only God could have done such an awesome work in me by His Spirit through His Word and because I have at long last truly devoted my life to Christ with the greatest reward being I am forgiven my sins and have a forever ever-growing relationship with God!
Some say believing in Christ means we have a free ticket to heaven. Not so. True faith in Christ bears the fruit of a lifestyle of living and breathing for God almighty. And the price we pay for having a forever relationship with God is that we’re willing to die to ourselves, to our own ways, wishes, and wants, to take up our crosses, to forsake our own dreams, plans, and agendas, and to follow Christ wherever He leads us as God conforms us to Christ and makes us holy as He is holy and prepares us for eternity with Himself. My flesh is still loud and proud, ever wanting its own lustful, selfish ways. But greater than this now is my hunger and passion for the Lord and my desire to love, worship, please, honor, revere, and praise Him forever! It hurts like heck to deny my selfish desires. But the sweet blessed reward of knowing God and being in His presence forever, nothing on earth can compare!