Setting Up House

“Jesus replied, ‘If anyone loves me, he will obey my teachings. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.’” John 14:23

There is a certain spiritual order of things in the emergence of our relationship with Christ. First and foremost is the decision to accept Him, pursue Him and love Him. Through this love we are called to a higher level of living. We are called to seek Him first and His teachings which grants access to the Father. Through the intercessory role of Christ we are made pure and forgiven in the eyes of God through His sacrifice. Once we are powered by His love and motivated by His teachings we invite the Trinity to take up residence in our heart wherever we are at that moment. Once invited in, the work of obedience on our part is our daily walk.

God doesn’t wait until we have cleaned house but relishes in the responsibility of cleaning house with us. He meets us where we are and works the redemptive work from ground zero. Each level of obedience and service will require fresh knowledge and understanding of Him. ‘The previous level of your walk with God will not be adequate for the new work God does through you.’ Experiencing God, p. 181.

One of the chapters in Dear Adversity describes me and Christ entering a room to decide what should remain and what clutter should no longer have a place in my life. ‘As I entered this room I was caught off guard when the first action item was to clean up all of the broken glass. The different shards of glass were reflecting different shapes and colors throughout the room. It was difficult to make sense of this room since there were so many distractions through my perception of the individual pieces. Together Christ and I knelt and piece by piece decided which had worth and were part of our new way of living.'’

This room represented to me an excerpt from a book that speaks on trusting and obeying God as He transforms us.

“When suffering shatters the carefully kept vase that is our lives, God stoops to pick up the pieces. But he doesn't put them back together as a restoration project patterned after our former selves. Instead, he sifts through the rubble and selects some of the shards as raw material for another project - a mosaic that tells the story of redemption.” Ken Gire, The North Face of God.

Genuine love for Him should naturally generate sincere devotion and obedience to Him.