Thoughts

I wanted to Tweet about some thoughts but didn't have enough characters. I wanted to post on Facebook about my thoughts but assumed that people would be bored by such a long post. So I came back to ol' faithful - Le Blog. So if you want to read some thoughts and get into my head, read on. If not, you might want to close this tab now :) 

I usually start off my blogs with something light-hearted or funny.... But this time I'm just gonna get straight into it.

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds;  and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." Ephesians 4:22-24.

Ephesians is one of my favourite books in the Bible. It's almost like a sermon rather than a letter.  It contains prayers and moments where I think silence is required.

"The main subject of Ephesians is what Paul calls 'the mystery'... a wonderful truth never revealed but now made known." - William MacDonald

This 'mystery' is referring to how the Jews and Gentiles are now one through Jesus. How we are now together seated with Christ. I love how this shows us so much about God's heart for the whole World. Ephesians also contains a lot of teaching about our response to His grace, and what it means to truly love one another in Christ; as His body. Ephesians is only 6 chapters long but is full of rich words which always fill me up.
If you want more thoughts or context, christnotes.org is always good because now we're strictly in "Christy's thought-land". A lot of what I write will be pretty straight forward and obvious. But I just need to write it down and lay it all out... So don't be put off by the obvious.

ANYWAY


"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds;  and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." Ephesians 4:22-24.

I've often come back to these verses throughout my life and have always been challenged by them. I've asked a lot of questions... Here's some questions & thoughts, not necessarily "right answers", but simply thoughts.

The first question that comes to my mind is what is my 'self'? 

'Self' encompasses every area of my life. My ‘self’ is my body, soul, spirit. Simply put, it is me.
So why, then, would a benevolent God who created me, want my whole self to change?
Being holy & totally loving, He sees the potential for which I was created. He sees His purpose which is yet to be outworked in my life. My former way of life is corrupting my 'self'. It's selling me short. Here's why: my deceitful desires. 

To be deceived is to be sold a lie as truth. Therefore, my deceitful desires promise me something they can't deliver.
I've been challenged a lot on this in my own life. I see how I've acted on desires that, on the outside, have promised wholeness and instead have left me empty. If the deepest call and highest command is to love God & love others, deceitful desires will point me away from that. They will point me to gratifying myself and promising something that isn't there. I need to ask myself this question: if Jesus really is my portion - all I need, what is it that I'm looking for in something else that I should be looking for in Him? Or, what is it that I want to satisfy that should be satisfied in Him?

So how do I '...put off the old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires'? I am made new in the attitudes of my mind.

To be 'made new' insinuates that it's something I can't do alone. You can't make yourself. It's only with the help of the Holy Spirit that I, as a fallen being, can be made new. He does require of me some action, as it's in every aspect of building The Kingdom of God that we co-labour with Christ. To build His Kingdom simply means to extend Kingship in the World. His Kingdom includes my mind & therefore my ‘self’. So I must ask Him to give me His thoughts & his desires.

People of most cultures & religions recognise the importance of thought life. As Buddha puts it:

"The thought manifests as the word,
The word manifests as the deed,
The deed develops into habit,
And habit hardens in character,
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love,
Born out of concern for all beings…
As the shadow follows the body,
As we think, so we become"

The mind is an incredibly important part of self. What you dwell on in your mind, what you believe, will eventually come out in your actions. 

Which is why it says, "to be made new in the attitude of your minds;  and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." In order to 'put on the new self' in order for my life to look like God, I must first learn to 'Take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.' Knowing that it's in His strength, not my own that I do this.

  

If you're still reading, well done. I'm surprised I haven't bored you to death. I probably would've stopped reading by now. 

Something I have been challenged on lately, as you have probably noticed, is the concept of self.
I need to put off the old self. Everything that is outside of God's intentions for my life. This also means slowly but surely learning about health:

Spiritual
Emotional
Physical
They aren't separate. They are intertwined! 

My heart and focus should always come back to 'Love God, love others', and that is possible at any stage in life. But in order to give God & others my very best, I want to be whole. If that means getting help, so be it! I want to put on the new self! I want to become like God. I want to live the life He intended for me to live. I want to explore the concept of the Kingdom. I want to figure out where I fit. I want His Kingdom to be outworked in my mind & in turn- in my life and in the lives of those around me.

I want to be made new.

Love & peace aways

Christy

  

Lazarus

It's been a while...
The last post I made was November 2011. It's now September 2012. When I began this blog, I vowed to myself that I wouldn't let it die....... It did.
HOWEVER, I did a First Aid course last week. So I'm PULLIN' OUT THE DEFIB!

Have you noticed that no one blogs these days? It's all about short, sharp messages that get straight to the point. No one cares enough to read blogs! Which kinda makes them cooler. It's like, "I'm gonna blog regardless of the fact that no one will ever read it!!" Chances are, no one will read this.  (If you do read this, I'm not being passive agressive and saying that you're no one. Bless you.) If you are reading this, you're probably getting bored about now.

I read this thing recently about the fact that our attention span is getting shorter. We register interest for about three minutes then suddenly die of boredom. I didn't get through the whole article.
Got bored.
Anyways, I wasn't conviced that we could only be stimulated for such a short amount of time. I was certain that I was above the threshold... UNTIL, one day I started looking up videos of Justin Beiber on YouTube (Guilty as charged)... It was totally for educational purposes... I was interested in seeing how his voice had changed since he (finally) went through puberty. So I watched a whole bunch of recent live videos. However, something that confounded me was the fact that when each of the videos had been playing for about 3 minutes I found myself wondering what I could type into the search box next. I thought I was better than that! Apparently not.

I tried to convince myself that if there was something I was truly interested in, I'd give it more attention. I was sure that if someone was talking to me about something important, I would listen wholeheartedly! So I watched myself. If someone was talking to me about anything, how many times did I check my phone, or look at my watch, or how many times did my mind wander to my own problems, or what I'd have for dinner or the funny thing that Jerry said last night, or the song I'd just written, or how much money is in my account, or the movie I watched earlier that day, or do they know how badly they need a breath mint, or how nice the weather is, or what I should've said to so & so in that argument, or how my feet hurt from standing too long or how I need to try the new burger at BK, or how I'm running late to be somewhere, or how I'd rather be anywhere else than here right now, or just generally caring about ME more than THEM?
I'd just like to point out that I wasn't overly thrilled with the results.
I would love to be able to say that the only things that distract me are poverty and how I can actually make a difference for other people. But that would be a lie.

We have become obsessed with the 'quick fix'. What 'satisfies' (if you're wondering, Snickers really satisfies). It's all about NOW. How am I feeling now? It's about me. Me. me. ME. 
The thing is... Life is about NOW. There's no time but now.
However, there are 7 billion other people in the World.
Life should be anything but all about me.


Peace & love always

Christy

Lord, Help me to have insatiable love for You & for your people