This week I really realize how much I need the Lord to be with my spirit. Without Him, it is really easy to stray to worldly or useless things. This week I've wasted a lot of time of useless things, and that is made worse in that school is starting next week. Only when I turn to Him for His grace, which is really His precious, precious Self, can I break free of my apathy and other things. In these times when so much is clammoring for our attention, we really need His grace to be with our spirit so that we would have the love and wisdom to choose the best--Himself. This is what I saw this week. I pray that I would continue to see this.
I never realized before that to live in Christ is really to be conformed to His death, so that we can be alive in His resurrection. I know that many times I just want to improve myself, and would ask the Lord to make me better, even "perfect" me, but that is not what He wants. He doesn't want our old self; He doesn't want our fallen and natural way of pursuing Him, but He wants us to be conformed to His death so that we can live in the power of His resurrection, where all things are new and fresh and joyous, even during trials. What a wonderful book Philippians is! It's so full of the experience and joy of Christ.
This week I was very busy with my new bird and with trying to finish a book, and somehow though it was kind of enjoyable, I felt very empty and unsatisfied. Yet when I turn away from focusing on those things and focus on Christ, putting to death my interests and just praying and talking to Him, I feel so fresh and joyous! I really realize that the out-resurrection isn't just something to hope for in the future, but something that can be experienced bit by bit, day by day, even today! WE are being put to death each day so we can be resurrected in Him each day. Praise the Lord!
I learned this week that to pursue Christ is not just seeking or loving Him, but running after Him to lay hold of Him in a very desperate way. This is something deep. Paul pursued in this way. How I long to pursue in this way. Many times I just follow the Lord weakly--when I remember Him; but we need to pursue Him! The verse says, "Forgetting the things which are behind..." There are a lot of things I try to hold on to from my past--the school I went to before I moved here, my old friends, old memories, even past experiences with the Lord. But we need to leave these behind, and stretch forward, pursue toward the goal, which is fully experiencing our wonderful Christ. Paul had this heart, and I pray that I would, too.
I went to a gathering for the young people of the East Coast in New York for the past two weeks, and the topic was God's full salvation. It is very amazing how great His salvation is! Oftentimes when we think of His salvation, we only think of the salvation that He accomplished for us on the cross, and that is indeed a very great salvation, but there is much more! The "cup of salvation" that He has given us is not just a small cup, but much more, as inexhaustible as the whole ocean!
He saves us not only from our sins and eternal separation from God, but also from the world, from the temptations of Satan, from ourselves, from countless things around us that seek to draw us away from God, from our afflictions, our anger, our jealousy, our loneliness. He is saving us unto sonship. He is filling us more and more so that we can be the children of God and be in the image of Jesus Christ His Son, expressing Him!
His salvation is truly really great, and I experienced it firsthand this past week. I was having so many fears about so many things. Once I was literally trembling about something I had to do, and another time about something I had done, and I was very down both those times. Yet each time, by His word and by the hymns we were singing at the gathering, the Lord spoke to me and comforted me. One line from a hymn was, "Each day let Thy supporting might / My weakness still embrace." That line really spoke to me, because then I realized that I was weak, and that we all are weak but for God. We couldn't do anything of ourselves no matter how much we struggle to do so. Only He had the supporting might with which He could always save me. All I have to do--whether in fear or in affliction or under persecution or even in joy--is take up His cup of salvation and drink to the fill, because it is inexhaustible.