Journal for week 10

Again, Sorry for the tardy journal entry, but hopefully, it is more coherent this way :P.

- Too often, I get comfortable where I am and then God uses the circumstances around me to get me moving again. My prayer is that I will learn to live like Paul, having more effect on the prisons in my life than they have on me. I want to use my ‘prisons’ to bring glory to God and allow other to see Christ in me. It is only through Christ, through repentance and faith, that I can be set free. And like Paul and Silas in prison, I can use my prison experience just as I can use any other experience as an opportunity to be bold and give the glory to God.

- As I obey Christ in the small things, He will entrust me to obey with bigger things. But I need to stop focussing on trying to figure out what the big things God wants to trust me with are and be faithful with the small things.

- In Philippians, Paul encourages us to be servants. This requires absolute obedience, absolute humility, and absolute servitude. First and foremost, I need to serve God, then I can properly serve others. I need to stop focussing so much on my rights and focus on the rights of others and I need to learn to love others the way they need to be loved, not the way I want to be loved. I need to open my eyes to see and observe, but I can never cultivate the habit of observing if I don’t get over my own needs.

- I want to learn to give thanks to God in ALL circumstances, for the circumstances (whether good or bad) and for who God is, and what He is doing in the circumstances. I want to have a perspective of proclamation and I want God to use me to be a witness to Him in every circumstance.

- My prayer is that God would work in me so I can put 1 Corinthians 10:31 into practice: “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” However, I need to remember that the only way Christ will get glory out of me is through Christ in me, not by my own efforts.

- “The eternal enemy of the best is that which is good.” I need to be careful not to settle for good when I can have the best which is Christ. I need to be pure and blameless so that any accusation against me will not stick. I want to earnestly seek that which is best, not settling for what is merely good.

- My aim needs to be to focus people on Christ, not on myself.

- It was not I who stepped towards Christ first, but rather Christ who stepped towards me (Romans 5:6). I am powerless to get myself out of my situation! But it is Christ who works in me, empowers me, and energizes me according to His good purpose. God empowers me, but I still need to obey. As A. W. Tozer put it, “I am as holy as I choose to be.” I need to live in a manner worthy of the gospel. I also need to hold tight to my faith and then hold it out to others.

- I need to simply trust God rather than work to please God (which can only lead to insecurity). I need to have a singleness of purpose and forget what is behind (whether it is good or bad) because that can only ever pull me back and slow me down.

- God never intended the Israelites to stay in the wilderness for long. His plan was to bring them out of Egypt and then lead them to the promised land. It is much the same in the Christian life. Through His sacrifice, Christ saved me out of bondage to sin. Unfortunately, I have spent the majority of my life wandering in the desert. I had been saved, but I was not living in Canaan as God intended. I had not realized the dramatic change Christ’s life in me could make if I allowed Him. These ten weeks at Bible College have made me realize that the Christian life is not just a set of rules and a way of talking but now I realize the power of my new purity, my new identity, my new disposition, and my new power in Christ.

- Nothing I do is good unless it is God who is doing it.

- If God is working through me, I will get tired, but He will sustain me!

- In Peter Bichan’s lectures on Mount Somers last week, he asked the question “What do you want to be remembered for after you die?” I want to be remembered for being filled with the joy of Christ, being thankful for and in every situation, and for giving God all the glory. I want to be remembered for pointing people to Christ in every situation. I want to be hated or loved – I don’t mind which – just so long as Christ’s life in me causes others to react.