Ephesians 2:10(NLT) tells us, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” This is one of those truths that must be firmly anchored in our hearts so that it fits firmly in our reservoir of faith and confidence. God calls us, human beings, His finest work, and this is something that warrants our perpetual gratitude and awe. We are created in the image of our wonderful Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! And just as our Lord and Savior received his mission from God to come to earth, we have also received our marching orders for our sojourn here as well. Long before we entered our mother’s wombs, God had a plan for our individual lives. He wants us to do the good things that He planned for us long ago. He’s predestined us to carry forth these ‘good things’ according to His plan for the entire universe. This is a spectacular truth, and each of us should make it our top priority to pray for a revelation regarding our purpose here, so that we can receive all the blessings God has in store.
Every human life has either a strong foundation or a shaky one. The blessings, bounty, and purpose that God has in store for each of us is our firm foundation. Walking in God’s purpose and plan firmly places our feet on the path that He has laid before us. This is life to us! God has provided a strong and enduring foundation for our lives through Jesus Christ, but He will not force us to build upon it. Jesus Christ makes this very clear in Luke 6:43-49(The Message): 46-47 “Why are you so polite with me, always saying ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘That’s right, sir,’ but never doing a thing I tell you? These words I speak to you are not mere additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundation words, words to build a life on. 48-49 “If you work the words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who dug deep and laid the foundation of his house on bedrock. When the river burst its banks and crashed against the house, nothing could shake it; it was built to last. But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a dumb carpenter who built a house but skipped the foundation. When the swollen river came crashing in, it collapsed like a house of cards. It was a total loss.”
God’s Will is that we, as His sons and daughters of light, are fully immersed in His nature and personality. Our commission in the earth is to live according to the example of Christ and to love others as he did. Our Heavenly Father is relentless to see us fulfill our spiritual potential. His commitment to our spiritual maturity in Christ is beyond the scope of what we can fathom. He is our Creator, and He knows the plans He has for us. Jeremiah 29:11 declares that these are good plans, those that give us a future and a hope.
God created us to be love, and our Heavenly Father wants us to be clothed and on fire with His radiance and power. He wants us fully free from the bondage of sin and darkness, but we can’t be in darkness and be free at the same time. We must choose to come into His light. He’s always rooting for us to do this, because He wants us to live free!
Our Heavenly Father is a God of order. He doesn’t deal in confusion and chaos. He’s a God of peace and love. According to His perfect and divine law, it is not possible to walk in truth while also walking in a lie. Jesus Christ makes this clear when he teaches us in Luke 16:13 and Matthew 6:24 that we can’t serve two masters. We have to make a choice and pledge our allegiance to one or the other. Either we are going to believe God’s Word and walk in the light of Christ or we’re not.
Some of us have made choices that have landed us in a really rough spot. We’re not happy because we’re weighted down by the consequences of the wrong choices we’ve made. We’re not looking in the mirror and being blatantly honest about what we see. We’ve given ourselves license to indulge negative behaviors, attitudes, and thoughts, and we won’t see these heavies for what they are. We have allowed them to take root in our lives, and we are blindly choosing to make bad choices.
Maybe there’s a person we dislike, someone that hurt or treated us unkindly, and we’re still holding resentment towards them. It’s possible that some of us haven’t cut loose arrogance when it comes to our opinions of others, and we’ve made a habit of looking down on certain people. Making a big life decision without consulting God is also a very poor choice. Perhaps we were afraid of losing out, and instead of seeking and trusting His guidance, we called all the shots ourselves. Another common hiccup is choosing to invest our time, energy, and emotions into a relationship with a person that isn’t the one for us. These are just a few examples of how we can make the wrong choices out of habit, and the cumulative effect is weighing us down and keeping us separated from the life and blessings we desire.
Choices and decisions that cause us to act, feel, speak, and behave in a way that is contrary to Christ will weigh our lives down, sometimes to the point of paralyzing us. We don’t realize that we’re trying to use inadequate building materials and tools for the foundation of our lives, and these do not measure up to the standard of God’s love. Probably more than any other prayer request, receiving clarity from God as to what we need to crucify, surrender, set loose in our lives is paramount to moving forward and upward.
God’s plan for us is to travel light through life. He commands us in Hebrews 12:1 to strip off every weight that slows us down on this journey, especially sin and darkness, because those will never help us receive what God has in store. Sometimes, our level of respect and reverence for God’s Word isn’t where it needs to be, and we might think we can skip the consequences of our wrong choices, but that isn’t possible. Holding on to things that cause us to live beneath our privilege is a choice we should never make. Fear, sin, and darkness cause us to stumble and fall, but we can be restored if we reach for the hand of Jesus Christ and allow his love to lift us up. This is always the right choice, and when we make it, our load is much lighter and our faith will grow stronger in Christ.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
“The Choice to Travel Light”, written for victoryinjesuschrist.life. Copyright© 2023. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
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