Seeing Ourselves

Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, Bob, why are you resisting me? I said, I'm not resisting you! He said, You gonna follow me? I said, I've never thought about that before! He said, When you're not following me, you're resisting me.
Bob Dylan (1941-, American musician, singer, songwriter)

Num 32:11-13
"None of the men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob; for they did not follow Me fully, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have followed the LORD fully.' "So the LORD'S anger burned against Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the entire generation of those who had done evil in the sight of the LORD was destroyed. NASU

Following requires faith, faith requires belief, and belief leads to footsteps of obedience to Christ. One of the things that are required is just as Bob Dylan put it, recognizing where you are resisting the influence of Christ in your life. Are you doing that? Don’t answer so quickly because the real answer requires prayer and a painful self-examination of where you are right now.

Self is integrated into our frames so well that it’s like trying to see a hidden picture on a page. People see Jesus on toast and rocks and windows, but we have a hard time finding out important facts about ourselves. Jesus requires of us to examine our ways, our personalities and extract from our frame those things that we hide that we don’t want to get rid of.

Jeremiah in Lamentations 3:40-41, tells us what to do; “Let us examine and probe our ways, And let us return to the LORD. We lift up our heart and hands Toward God in heaven;” That is to say that we are not to hide anything, we show him our hands, and we lift up our hearts to Him for total exposure. In this is faith, in this is belief, and it keeps our resisting flesh under control…God Bless.

Pastor William