As a young child, the one thing I feared most was making my father angry. My father was a stern disciplinarian. He had no problem " taking his belt off". I remember times when he would call me to come in the house. He would never call you unless you were in trouble. He would stand in the doorway. He wouldn't block the entrance, but he would just kinda get in the way. I would walk past him. Just when I would think that everything was okay, he would pluck me on the back of my head. For whatever reason, that seem worse than getting beat with the belt, which would eventually happen after the pluck on the head.
As I grew older, my father no longer seemed like such a big man. I was an athlete, not very big, but strong for my size. I no longer feared my father. After all, what could this little man do to me? I got too big for my britches, as my mother used to say. I stood up to him from time to time. I became rebellious, free from the fear that used to keep me in check. I realize now that I did not have a great deal of respect for my father, at least not during that period of my life.
When I got older, when I really started to come into manhood, my attitude towards my father changed. Circumstances and situations in my life caused me to see life from a man's perspective. Before that, I saw life through the eyes of a child. There was nothing that I wouldn't do for my father because I had learned to love him. I had grown to the point that I wanted my father to ask me to do things for him. It took some time for me to get past the guilt I felt for all the disrespect I had shown him. He understood. He may not have liked the way I acted, but he understood. He never held it against me. He forgave me before I knew that I needed forgiveness.
Funny how my relationship with my earthly father parallels my relationship with my heavenly father. For all of my life, I have heard preachers talk of being obedient, "living right", paying tithes, and everything else that comes with living a "saved life". I had to learn for myself that what Jesus wants most from me is to love Him. Without love for Him, everything that I do is corrupt. I realize to some that may seem a bit extreme. But I had to ask myself why? If not for love, what are the reasons that I do anything in the name of Christ? Fear of consequences? Because He told me to? Because I expect something in return? Any reason other than "because I love Christ" is impure. God knows my motives better than I do. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still wrong.
In some of my past blogs I wrote about not being focused. So I tried to focus on being obedient, on "living right". What I didn't see was Jesus, standing on the sideline saying, "What about me?". I needed to be reminded that this walk isn't about me, or this blog, or anything else that I may have thought. This walk is about Him. It is about getting to know Him, getting to know what it really means to love. The only way to know what that means is to know the source. The source of love is Jesus. Proverbs 4:23 says "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Psalm 119:11 says, "Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I may not sin against thee." John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." So if the issues of life come from the heart, and I hide the Word in my heart, and the Word is Jesus, then I become filled with Jesus. I become filled with the love of Jesus.
This is my purpose. I had spent so much time looking for my purpose, that I lost sight of Jesus. God's ultimate purpose for us is to be conformed to image of His son, Jesus Christ. In order to be conformed to His image I have to know that image. I have to know Jesus. I have to focus on getting to know the person of Jesus, the love of Jesus, and the God of Jesus. The more I get to know Him, the more of Himself He deposits in me. The more I am like Him, the less I am like me. The more I get to know Him, the more I love and trust him, the more I submit to Him to the point that I no longer have a will of my own. My will becomes His will. I have come to realize that my purpose in life is to become a vessel to carry out the will of Christ.
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