Be Holy
The call to holiness should not be intimidating or scary. The call to holiness is a beautiful invitation from our heavenly Father to be closer to Him, closer to His heart and closer to His plans and desires for our life. It is a call of love from our Creator and Father!
And this love is so great that we don’t have to go through an obstacle course of challenges, trials and exhaustion to get there. We don’t have to do this on our own. All we are called to do is let go. Let go of our perceived control of our life. Let go of our desires and goals. And let God take over in our life. Let Him decide our path and what's best for us. Give Him control of our decisions and surrender to the Holy Spirit working in our hearts and life.
Full surrender is not easy, and it is something we must constantly evaluate to ensure we are not trying to snatch back control in any areas. But it is also one of the most beautiful choices we can make. To sit back and say yes, God I trust you, I know you are absolutely good, I know your plans are the best for my life and I give it all to you. I give you all control over my life and ask that you work on me. Heal my heart and chisel away at me so I can look more like you. So I can shine your light as bright as possible for those around me to see your goodness too!
You see, if we do not fully surrender, then our hearts are not in the right place to hear and obey the Holy Spirit. We may not hear Him, or if we do, we may ignore the convictions the Holy Spirit puts on our hearts. We may not allow Him to bring us closer to holiness. We may not allow him to work on us and mold our hearts closer to purity and where God desires us to be. Convictions are a significant way that the Holy Spirit speaks to us. I think it is a significant way that He takes our hand and walks us toward holiness. It is how He helps to mold our character to be more like Jesus, because without that we cannot shine His light. Without any change in our life, how can we show others the beauty and realness of Christ?
For example, a little while back the Holy Spirit started to convict me of drinking. Now, did I have a drinking problem? Absolutely not. I simply enjoyed a glass of wine here and there. But out of nowhere, when I would be drinking that wine, the guilt and pointlessness of it overwhelmed me. The Holy Spirit did not whisper specific directions to me (which sometimes He does) but it was an unavoidable conviction. This happened for about two months or so, and finally I said ok, Lord I choose you, I don’t understand everything you do, but I trust that you have a particular reason why You are convicting me of this, so no more. I let go of it! And again, not because it was needed for my life, not because my family needed me to for any reason, not because it seemed to be outright sin, not because I indulged too much, simply because the Holy Spirit put it on my heart to do so. I still do not fully understand, because there are others in my life who do not feel that conviction. But that is where the intimacy and trust comes in. If we are in the mindset that we have to understand everything, well, then that does not look like much faith, right?
So, is there anything that has been on your heart? Are there any convictions nagging away at you that you are trying to avoid? Has God asked you to do something that you are ignoring? I encourage you to trust Him and go through with it! Trust me, I know it can be very scary. The past few years have been a wild journey of trust for me and I have not seen comfort in about 5 years :) But also, I truly believe life begins when you take hold of Jesus’ hand, and say ok! Whatever you ask, lets do this! So do it. Let go of fear. Choose faith. Choose intimacy. Choose God and His ways!
