Insights

I’ve heard a lot of blonde jokes, but this one had me laughing for quite a while. Don’t forget to trackback to me if you enjoy it!

The Lord has been teaching me over the past few months that I have been doing many things the wrong way. The really cool thing about this is that many of my friends learned very similar things over the summer while we were all apart. It’s been fun to talk to different people and learn how the Holy Spirit has revealed very similar things through different circumstances and in different locations. My friend, Nicole, recently posted on her blog about the things the Lord has taught her recently. I’m just going to paste her whole blog here, because it’s exactly what He’s been teaching me. Look for more to come from me to talk about a few more aspects of His teaching in my life.

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Overcompensation Station

Hey guys! This is Nicole. I felt like writing down some things that the Lord has been showing me this past month. (Oh, and by the way, the amazing title came compliments of Mr. Ryan himself. He’s really cool.) Being here at boot camp has been a life altering experience. During one class a few weeks ago the Lord began to speak to Ryan and I both about the same issue. I wrote furiously everything God was saying, and have been meaning to type it up, but haven’t had a chance until now. So here goes… First of all, the Lord showed me how much I try to gain a status of holiness without the Holy Spirit. We spend so much time discussing, thinking & being taught about holiness, that often times we jump ahead of God and attempt to be holy apart from the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.

“But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.” ~2 Thessalonians 2:13

The result is that we look really good on the outside, but have not been changed by God nor rely on His strength and love. We might even do the things the bible says are good for the believer to do, and not do things that it says we shouldn’t do…all the while neglecting the heart issues and intimacy with sweet King Jesus. We might have all of these activities lined up, and have scripture to back up why they are good to participate in, yet what is our motive? I feel as if we try to earn God’s favor while acting like we are not. We are proud. We teach on holiness and how to live “holy” instead of encouraging and teaching on intimacy with God. From my experience, these teachings have not encouraged me to love Jesus with all of my heart, mind, soul, and strength. Instead they have caused me to judge holiness in my brothers and sisters in a way that breeds comparison, disdain, dirty thoughts, disfellowship, pride, a “holier than though” mindset, etc. I may have all of the activities to make me look good to my fellowship, and even the right lingo, but that does not mean that I am pleasing God by my actions. In fact I believe that God is disgusted by my actions and for sure the attitude of my heart (which I have become pretty good at hiding).

I often felt like our group at A&M was the “IT” Christian fellowship and that we were the only group in town who really heard from the Lord. Of course I would never say this out loud, these were mainly subconscious thoughts, but they came out in my negative talk about other groups on campus. These thoughts and unrighteous judgments are what God has been revealing to me. For instance certain Christian sororities have had a bad connotation in my head for a long time. I confess that to you and ask for your forgiveness. I judged those sisters wrongly, without truthfully even knowing much about them. I’m sure somewhere I heard a negative comment or judgment about them, and instead of praying for my sisters, I allowed hatred to gain a foothold in my heart. How gross is that!!! For a long time I have basically hated, and kept a distance from my sisters in the Lord!! How can we allow such dissension to take place amongst the believers? We need to join together to pray, seek the Lord, encourage one another, & fight the enemy. The truth is that we need all parts of the body of Christ, and no part is better than another. We are all dearly loved children of God. Praise Jesus!

We are called to be holy, but holiness comes from the grace of God, not ourselves. We can’t conjure it up. All of this sounds obvious and these are all things that I have heard people talk about, but rarely seen people live out. One huge thing the Lord has shown me lately is how often I judge others, mainly in my thoughts, and that effects how I view them. Ask Him to reveal to you thoughts that you have that are not of Him, mainly about others. I have found that quite often I judge others by what I see. I think that discernment and dealing with sin has its place of course. I’m not saying we should be easy on sin. The key to what I’m saying is that the judgments I made did not lead me to want to help the people, pray for them, and desire them to know God on a deeper level. Instead I compared myself and first, felt good about how “advanced” beyond them I was in my walk with God, and second, looked down on them for not understanding or being “righteous enough”.

If we discern that somebody is dealing with something, is in sin, or may not have the revelation that we do yet about an issue, we should be led to LOVE them, pray, teach and exhort. When we see sin we should desire restoration, sanctification, obedience and the conforming of that person into God’s image. I think that in order to avoid the extreme of, “waiting on the Lord so long that we end up never talking to anybody about Jesus and really just use ‘waiting on the Lord’ as an excuse to keep from having to work for the kingdom”, we have overcompensated and become the other extreme of, “Go, Go, Go, do, do, do, who needs to use the gifts when we can talk about them, I don’t have time to spend with Jesus because by-golly people are dying and going to hell and I have to rescue them all by myself, although I have heard cool stories of men praying 10 hours a day and obviously if I am not doing that, than I am not a Christian, although last time I tried to pray for 10 hours, I ran out of things to say and I didn’t feel productive if I was just sitting with the Lord, so I stopped praying and later felt like a failure…I don’t know if I will ever achieve the “spiritual holiness” of John Wesley…I bet God is mad at me…I must have lost my salvation…maybe I was never saved to begin with?”.

OK…so maybe I went a step too far with that one, but I think it’s funny…and sad because there is a lot of truth in it. I have seen people, including myself, burn out because they relied on their own strength, and not on the Joy of the LORD! The Lord is a good Father and desires us to obey. We have to obey. However, I think many of us are allowing the enemy to influence and condemn us. Instead we should be in an intimate relationship with God, out from which our ministry flows. I have a lot more to say, but it will have to wait for another time.

Basically God is sooo good and full of love! He is the righteous judge, not us. We are called to LOVE above all else. I confess that I have not been doing this. Forgive me Lord Jesus for trying to earn my salvation by performing for you and for allowing hatred and bitterness to creep into my heart for others. Help us to receive your love and be able to extend it to our brothers and sisters. Thank you for being so patient, gracious, and merciful. Nicole