Well hello there, exactly-what-I-was-looking-for! It's going really well so far. Tonight I read my daily scriptures and also read a devotional from a series that Gateway is doing for the first few weeks of this year.
The title of the devotional tonight was "More Than a Ticket to Heaven" and the verse at the intro is Philippians 1:11. "May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation- the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ- for this will bring much glory and praise to God."
Just the title of the night's devotional and that scripture by themselves moved me enough to write for a few pages in my journal. This scripture is one I've heard before many times, but God used it to speak to me nonetheless.
How many days of my life have I not walked in fruitfulness? How many moments have there been in my life where I've chosen my own selfish, fruitless ways over the Lord's? There is an attitude of self-centeredness all around us every day. That's not just around non-believers, either. I've witnessed it from Christians all throughout my life. "I believe in Jesus, but I'm not going to go around talking about it all the time. Everyone knows I'm a Christian"..."I know I do some things I shouldn't do, but I'm saved so...God forgives me." "I love God, but I'm not giving {insert sin here} up." This turns Christianity into something that is merely about us getting a "ticket into Heaven." I'm not trying to point fingers at everyone else and sport a holier-than-thou attitude. Trust me. I've thought all of those things in many different degrees at various points in my life. I'm guilty of forgetting that I am a part of a divine, beautiful love story. I'm guilty of treating my faith like a get out of jail free card.
The problem with this attitude is this: it is not at all what God wants for his children. It is an absolute perversion of his grace. Have you ever come across any scripture that supports this awful attitude? No. But how about a few that speak out against it?
{Matthew 3 : 8-10} "Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance. And don't presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones! Even now the ax is ready to strike the root of the trees! Therefore, every tree that doesn't produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."
{Titus 2 : 11-14} "For the grace of God has appeared with salvation for all people, instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age, while we wait for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people for His own possession, eager to do good works."
{James 1 : 21-25} "Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. 22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does."
I love this section of the devotional, because it says it better than I can:
"The amazing thing about salvation is that God wants to save us for His purposes in this life. He saves us from sin and hell, but He also saves us to life and life more abundantly (John 10:10). The Bible speaks of this as laying aside your old self and putting on your new self (Ephesians 4:20–24)."
There is so much more to Christ than we can understand. There is so much more to Him than we deserve. He is not a distant God. He is our Creator. He can give us more than we even think to ask for. So many times we put God in a box in the back of our minds when He is more than able to cover every nook and cranny of our existence with grace, power, and glory. Why make Him a small part of our lives when he is the loving, powerful, gracious source of life?
"If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." -C.S. Lewis
