Our awesome and powerful God is not only able to forgive us from our tangled ways, but he is also able to grow us and shape us into better Christians as we pursue him.
Forgetting and putting sin behind us is a hard road to take. The life of a Christian has never been advertised as easy. But, as we put off our old selves and lives we can put on a new self, a person that is full of the life and joy that comes when we pursue Christ. Here are a few things that you can think about as you go about your daily walk!
1: Understand that forgetting your sin is a gradual journey.
Something that I’ve always struggled with is the fact that many testimonies have the same ring to them:
“…and in that moment I accepted Christ and I was completely changed!!”
Don’t get me wrong. These stories are absolutely true and beautiful to hear.
But it doesn’t stop there.
For me, my faith has been a gradual slope, riddled with many different points in my life where I ‘accepted’ or ‘came back to’ Christ. I could spill countless stories of praying a prayer that made my heart feel a change. But I could also tell you many stories of me falling back into my own tangled ways, even after these prayers.
This is something that I always need to tell myself, and I think you need to hear, too.
Getting rid of sin is a life-long journey. We will never be perfect at it. We will never be ‘miraculously changed’ to become the perfect Christian. The CHANGE we need to see is our desire.
Our heart’s desire should, instead of being towards other things, be focused on becoming better and better at pursuing and desiring God.
2: The more we focus on him, the less we focus on our sin.
The more we desire God and the more we spend time with him, the less we think about our tangled ways and lifestyle. Pretty practical, right? My mom always says this: “When you say yes to something, you’re saying no to something else.”
(Usually, she says this to make sure we’re not tackling on too many things at once… haha! Love you mom:)
But it’s actually SO true because the more we say yes to God, the more we say no to our sin. This is so so important in our walk. Hard sometimes, but important.
3: Don’t forget to look back and see the progress you’ve made.
A lot of times in my life, I have looked back on the past years and thought, “Wow. I am so much different. What happened?”
Sometimes that’s a good thing, other times it isn’t… but I can guarantee that when you are trying to pursue Christ and praying that he will work in you, you WILL see it!
Sometimes it’s hard in our day to day lives to see what he is doing. But that all changes when we step back and find that we are being formed and molded into something we could have never dreamed of ourselves.
This not only helps me with getting through my tangled ways, but also encourages me in my overall faith. What other explanation is there that we change, and that we are changed in such miraculous ways that could only come from God himself?? He is working in you and in me, friends. How amazing is that?!
These are all awesome ideas!! Great post 🙂