He Simply Must

For the past several months I have been praying specifically that God would make me more like Himself. I set out wanting to learn to love the ones He loves, hate the things He hates, and be just like He was when He walked this earth. As I have prayed this prayer, and allowed the Holy Spirit to examine my heart and life (Ps 139:23-24), I have found that God has certainly transformed pieces of me to be more like Himself (thank goodness, for those old parts of me were ugly). What I am finding more often, however, are those bits and pieces I have not yet allowed God's grace to touch- those places I have not yet surrendered to His ways and will.

I always thought that I could pick and choose how I was to follow Christ. I had passions, and dreams, and goals- surely to follow Christ meant to use those things I already had in me for His glory, right? Right, but only to a certain extent. The problem with letting my own passions, my own dreams, my own goals dictate how I followed Christ was simply that- all of those things were mine, and so to live by them would mean living according to my own ways, and not necessarily the ways of God.

The more I prayed and read, the clearer it became that in asking God to teach me what it meant to follow Him, I was actually asking the wrong question. The more I prayed and read, the clearer it became that God is actually asking for me to do more than just follow Him. His Word tells me...

"I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." Gal 2:20

See, if I was only called to follow Him, than I would not actually have to be crucified. As long as I adjusted my steps every once in a while, I could go on living as I always had. The problem is that it's just not enough. It's not enough to model my own life (passions, dreams, goals and all) after His, because at the deepest root, my life remains my own.

What He is actually asking of me is to let go of all of my own ways, and to let them die completely. I must let myself be crucified if this verse from Galatians is ever to be a present reality; if Christ is ever going to actually live in and through me, I must completely and totally surrender my life to Him.

And so, as I learn and am compelled to surrender more of myself to Him who owns all of me already (1 Cor 6:19-20)- this is my prayer (same as John the Baptist in John 3:30)- He must increase, but I must decrease. He simply must.