You Determine Who Shapes You…
Not long after that Bonhoeffer devotional on shaping forces…I was in prayer and singing to the Father.
I don’t know why Jesus loved me
I don’t know why He cared
I don’t know why He sacrificed His life
Oh, but I’m glad! I’m glad He did
So glad He did…. I’m glad He did
Does your humanity (and its lack of ability to obey on its own) ever cause you to weep before Him? To acknowledge you need Him? To reaffirm your commitment to Him, and awareness that only He can deliver and save? In this age that emphasizes ability and achievement without God, moments like these are crucial, where we cast our care and hand over our lives to His government again.
Wrapped in His Presence and Love, my soul quieted and I heard the following words…
Endure the shaping and forming into Christ’s image. This season’s intensity reveals the motives of human hands and systems that want to form you into their image of ministry. But I placed you in Christ and the pains are your adjustments (your conforming) to His unyielding frame. Let His life shape you, not the hands of man.
Isn’t this beautiful, Royal Ones? Be encouraged. The effort is not ours to change these systems, for they are bigger and stronger than us. We fix our eyes and hearts on the Father, and His strong love through Jesus Christ.
Do not let the controlling human-focused systems deceive us. God is in control, and He works in us both the will and the DOING of His good pleasure. If the hands on you do not shape you from your fixed place in Christ, the natural result is tension and awkwardness and pain.
Choose Life, Royal Ones. Choose abundant life IN CHRIST. Choose Christ. Be aware of the true assignment of the fivefold. Let the logos, the whole counsel of God, inform your rhema. That is, His Word (logos) is the lamp to our feet (now) and the light to our path (next).
Receive the Father’s offer to stabilize and “re-plant” in His Word. Resist the enticing words of man’s wisdom. Resist sensual wisdom. Refuse shaping hands that disagree with the shape and form of Christ. Submit to God. Submit to the shaping of Christ’s life in you. Resist the devil’s method and system…and he will flee from you.
Humbly submitted…
Image: illinoisdeafministries.org
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