Living Like You Are One Breath Closer To Heaven

My Utmost For His Highest

 

Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. —Psalm 37:5

 

“In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, everyday issues of our lives. If we have the idea that we have to put on our “spiritual face” before we can come near to God, then we will never come near to Him. We must come as we are.”  CHAMBERS

 

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges for Christians is to understand their spiritual nature.  Before Jesus we were dead toward God.  After Jesus, we are spiritually alive.  Before Jesus everything was natural.  After Jesus, everything is spiritual. What I mean by “everything is spiritual” is that you have been reborn.  You live in a new reality.  The question is do you live your life with that understanding? Or, do you live your life as if you have two natures?  The natural for everyday living and the spiritual for those times when you need to relate to God.  Do you balk at that idea? There is a phrase, “We are in the world but not of the world”,  which many think is a verse reference.  It is actually a summary of several verses.  (John 17:14–19) “I [Jesus] have given them your [God the Father] word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.”  Another verse is Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  That is our challenge, every day.  Living with the constant understanding that we are not the same as those who are not born again.  You are redeemed.  Every breath you take, Christian, is one breath closer to heaven. But, if you are not seeking to know God more.  If you are not trusting in God every day in every way, but in your own wisdom; your life may, in fact, be indistinguishable from those who with every breath are one breath closer to hell.

 

It would be wonderful if we did not have to be reminded of our spiritual nature.  But the majority of us must be reminded.  The influence of our flesh is strong.  It is so easy to drift back into the patterns that we were first born into to and have been so dependent upon.  It is only through the disciplines of the faith can we hope to respond to the day to day events of this life in a different way.  The new life is not something just for the super spiritual.  We have all received the same amount of the Holy Spirit at the point we were born again.  What makes the difference is the level to which you are submitted to the leading of the Spirit.  Your level of trust in God verse yourself.  Jesus said “If anyone comes after Me, he must deny himself (his old nature), pick up his cross daily, and follow Me.” (Matthew 16:24)  Our new life is fully centered on Jesus. Our motivation should be our understanding of and appreciation for what Jesus has done for us.  “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, but not I, Christ lives in me.  And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”  (Galatians 2:20) CHARLEY