This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. ~Deuteronomy 30:19 (NIV)
In every season, every step, and every moment there is potential for life or death, blessing or curse. Although we hate the thought of it, many times we find ourselves back in our own humanity and off that path of life and blessing. We wish we hadn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that we are back in the mud and mess. We slip back into our old way of thinking and doing things verses what we have learned from the Lord. We get so caught up in our comfort zone of sin that we forget that building our character is of vital importance to both our confidence and to our witness! When we find ourselves covered with the evidence of our old selves and our old life we have to run to Jesus. We have to swallow our pride (which often got us where we are in the first place) and run to Jesus to be as the bible teaches in 1 John 1:9 cleansed of all unrighteousness. We have to be ready to admit we messed up. We have to be ready to get on our knees and ask the Lord to show us His better way of handling our lives, our time, our money and our relationships all over again!
Forgiveness is always ours for the asking, but God says there is a higher ground that we can walk. We read in 1 Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” (NIV) If we will be honest with ourselves and with God, we will find that more often than not when we fall into temptation it is because we were looking more for a way to be able to step into it without consequences than looking for God’s path away from it. We spend our energy clinging to the narrative of grace verses the Lord who extends the grace. We are masters at justifying ourselves and our actions, but it is rarely lined up against the knowledge of who we were recreated to be. We are told as children to “be the bigger person”. We know the bigger person is the one who can see past what they want right now to the greater good or peace that can be attained with love and sacrifice. Being that person isn’t easy for a child or an adult, but the Lord tells us it is possible, and it is a higher way of living. The Lord says in Philippians 2:13 “for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose.” (NIV) How different would your life look if you countered every temptation to not forgive in the minute with the confession that God is working in you to will and to act the way He wants you to? Maybe if we reminded ourselves of that truth more often, we would spend less time in shame and sin because we took the high ground! When we trust in Jesus as our Savior, it is imperative we understand that He has made us a new creation, not an improved version of our former selves. We are a different person altogether. God does not ask us to do anything we are incapable of doing, but He continually asks us to do what we can only accomplish with His help. You have been equipped and empowered with all of heaven’s armies and provisions behind you to take the high ground in every choice you make!
For Christ’s love compels us…that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again….Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors… ~2 Corinthians 14-15, 17 & 20 (NIV)
How will you choose to honor God today by stepping up to higher ground?
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