Alrighty, so the reason I’m writing this is because I went for young adults meeting last night and we had an interesting discussion about how God works.
You see, we tend to treat God as a ‘Cosmic Consultant’. What that means is that we ask God if we’re doing the right thing, but we’re actually just hoping God to ‘bless everything we do’ instead of actually asking if we’re on the right track. Which also means that when God does consult us, we just ignore it or give excuse, and continue on the same path. At the end of the discussion, these were a few things I’ve learned.
Firstly, God asks for obedience in the amount of truth He has revealed to us (or shined light upon. or convicted us.). So if He has convicted us in a lot of things and if our knowledge of the word of God is strong, it means He expects us to be obedient in that amount. But if some of us don’t really know His word and His laws and His teachings and His ways, but we did still get convicted for one or two things, He only expects obedience in those one or two things. We don’t fail by knowing less. He expects us to respond in obedience according to the amount of light that He has already shed on our life. ‘Light’ as in knowledge of His character, who we are in Him, and His laws and ways.
Secondly, the more obedient we are, the more we are ready for more light. And God will slowly reveal more to us. As I said, as light reveals, we could be more aware of His character, who we are in Him, or anything about His laws and how He works. But to those who choose to be disobedient and give excuse, or are just so blind that they don’t think God’s revelation to the situation is better, God will take back what light we have. Slowly of course. Like a Light Dimmer Switch. Either you get more and more light, or less and less. The more you disobey, the more blinded you are to God’s light and truth. The more you obey, the more we see truth. Gradually. This is so real to my experiences in my Christian walk. I tend to go into a time or season of more disobedience and sin. When I do, I will sin more, I will notice God and His love less. I will say the wrong things, hurt people, and choose to be offended as well. Like a downward spiral. The more I sin, the more I sin. But when I choose to come back to God, overcome immoral temptations and choose to love, I see God’s beauty around me more, I feel hope and purpose, I’m more sensitive to God’s peace and guidance, I even say the right things to people to make them feel better without me knowing. Like an upward spiral. I don’t know where I am personally now though. I’m in a pretty confusing place. But we’ll talk about that next time.
Thirdly, I found from the scriptures (I forgot which scripture. I’m sorry!) is that repentance is a big key. Okay, sure, repentance has always been the big key. All the pastors have repeated this over and over. Even I have repeated this to the teens I’m teaching. But, there are two things about repentance that are… more clear to me. Not new, just more clearly defined. Firstly, repentance is not only an act of obedience, it is acting in obedience. Hmm… I’m not sure if I said it the way I am thinking it now. Let me redefine that… (I didn’t think about how to present this properly)… Repentance is when we act in obedience. Hmmm… If we don’t act in obedience, it’s not called repentance. Okay, I think you know my drift. Repentance and obedience are directly connected. So God asks us to repent and turn from our sins. Because that is the meaning or repentance. An act of obedience. A response to conviction. But don’t worry (like I always do. Aaron Stop it!), God didn’t ask us to “Repent and be perfectly free from sin! For if thou hast sinned still, repent thou didnst!” No, don’t beat yourself up and say that you didn’t repent honestly enough just because you fell back into the same sin. God asks us to turn from sin. The action of turning from sin and running from temptation requires time, energy, planning, support, prayer, and a whole lot of fighting. Second thing about the word repentance. Repentance is not asking for forgiveness. I repeat, repentance is NOT the act of asking for forgiveness. Asking forgiveness is a small part and maybe the first part of repentance, but not THE act of repentance. I’m sorry if I’m teaching something different from what your church has taught you. That would be my bad. Not anyone else. This is what I’ve learned from the bible, which I could have messed up big time. It’s up to you guys to teach me. From what I’ve learned, repentance is obedience. Asking for forgiveness is part of what God has asked us to do, but once we are sure of God’s forgiveness, which we can always be sure of, the real act of repentance is obedience. The reason why this was highlighted as something I knew but are suddenly more clear to me is because I always hear people talk about repentance as a guilt trip and begging for mercy. God doesn’t reveal to us our wrongs to make us feel bad. He wants us to turn our foolish ways and do the right thing which is also the smart thing. We need to focus on being obedient rather than fighting sin. We need to focus on thanking God instead of doing the guilt trip all the time. Sigh, this is so me haha. I can’t believe God has to use me to speak to myself… Anywho…
I hope this long post has spoken to you like the discussion last night has spoken to me. And I hope to blog more. If you have any questions for me to answer about my life or about any difficulty you have with God’s word, or how it applies to life (I love discussing life), feel free to ask. It would probably give me more to blog about anyways. If this has helped, do give it a thumbs up. Click the subscribe button to be up to date with new content. And click on my face for more goodness from previous posts.
There is hope. We can be fixed. 