It was October 10, 2009 that I accepted Christ and His salvation. It was a year ago but through the years living the new life of Christianity, I had failed. Along the way I had this fluctuating sort of Christianity. All through the year, I've been struggling with the cycle of trying, failing and tyring again, realizing that kind of Christianity doesn't really exist. There is only one valid kind of Christianity, it wasn't supposed to be fluctuating, changing or anything else, but it should be God's kind! It is the kind of living on His own terms not on our own standards.
I know I wasn't so good at school works, academics... etc... But the problem was did I really gave the best of me. I came to the thought that I haven't done my very best at the first place. My standards are so low compared to what God has prepared for me. It was looking back to my comfort zone where I used to live my entire life before being familiar with the name called "Jesus Christ". The whole story was so frustrating that I ended up as a failure not just to my friends but mostly of course to my family and how it affected my life and the life of other people that surrounds me. Then, I began to understand how it happened to me when God is really at work in my life. What I commit to Jesus Christ and place in His hands, he undertakes to look after. What I do not entrust Him I have to look after myself. I haven't resolved everything to God until the day that God has opened up my eyes to the things I have to see.
On the day, I had declare that "I am a Christian" who accepted Jesus as my Lord and Saviour and after a year of serving Him and living for Him, it was really to find out that I had never been a Christian and had not experienced the gift of salvation. If I were, then I should not be who I was before!
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" (2 Corinthians 5:17, TNIV)
In Proverbs, it is said that "in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight." To my own selfishness, afraid to give up the whole driving thing and steering wheel of my life to God I wasn't really acknowledging Him in every area of my life. Most of the time actually, I wanted to do my own thing on my own way. Trying hardly to put myself on the throne when it was not supposed to be me be the lord of my life but Him who is really on the throne of everyone's life whom God has placed Him as the King of kings and the Lord of Lords.
"And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way." (Ephesians 1:22-23)
I got right with God and had resolved everything to Him. Now my goal is to trust Him in everything He plans to do with my life, to love Him with all my heart, with all my soul and with all my mind and to love others as myself. It was REALLY a HARD decision to make. But to fully experience a life of Christianity in His ministry it's a compulsary requirement - to give up everything to Him. I do not know what will happen to my life, but whatever it is, I decided to leave it all up to Him.
Lordship and salvation should always come together. The Christian life begins with knowing that we are a new person in Jesus Christ through justification and with surrendering to His lordship. "And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again."(2 Corinthians 5:15) We can only be truly saved when we receive Jesus not just as our Saviour but also to be the Lord of our lives, then the result is the fruitful and challenging life of Christianity that God had prepared for us since before we were conceived in our mother's womb.
In Mark 10:
17As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to
him and fell on his knees before him. “Good
teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit
eternal life?”
19You know the commandments: "You shall not
murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall
not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you
shall not defraud, honor your father and
mother."
20“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept
since I was a boy.”
21Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One
thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell EVERYTHING you
have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure
in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
What a tough requirement, isn't it? But in order to receive eternal life, you must sell your possessions, give to the poor, which means in other words, you must dethrone your god and then come follow Him.
Mark 10:
23Jesus looked around and said to his disciples,
“How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom
of God!”
It is really hard to enter the kingdom of God and to live a Christian life when we have other gods in our lives. It may be in a form of money, things, habits, lifestyle, addiction and the most destructive of them all is our SELF.
Matthew 6
24“No one can serve two masters. Either you
will hate the one and love the other, or you will be
devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot
serve both God and Money.
Same as, you cannot serve both yourself and God. One will be higher and one will be more pleased.
The kind of relationship we must have to come in Christ is that, He is to be given exclusive rights as the authority in our lives, to the exclusion of everything else - even legitimate and good things.
"In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples." (Luke 14:33)
"And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:27)
Another example that Jesus illustrated on how Christian life was...
Luke 14:
28“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower.
Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to
see if you have enough money to complete it?
29For if you lay the foundation and are not able to
finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you,
30saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t
able to finish."
When you decided to accept Christ lordship, it is a one lifetime decision you made. An all or nothing option. There's no turning back. That once you're in, it meant you are really in!
It is a matter of a BIG decision and an act of surrender you will make...
Luke 14:
31“Or suppose a king is about to go to war
against another king. Won’t he first sit down and
consider whether he is able with ten thousand
men to oppose the one coming against him with
twenty thousand? 32If he is not able, he will send
a delegation while the other is still a long way off
and will ask for terms of peace."
There is no exception, no reservation and everything should be in an act of obedience to what He says. How could we know what He is telling us to do? It is by knowing Him through reading the Bible, in studying the truths written in that Book that God has authored for us.
Ephesians 1:
18I pray that the eyes of your heart may be
enlightened in order that you may know the hope
to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious
inheritance in his people, 19and his incomparably
great power for us who believe. That power
is the same as the mighty strength 20he exerted
when he raised Christ from the dead and seated
him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21far
above all rule and authority, power and dominion,
and every name that can be invoked, not only
in the present age but also in the one to come.
Note:
I may not be able to come up to this decision without God being so willing to call my name, not just twice but with number of times I can't truly count. I was so insensitive of what he tells me. Sometimes I even have to cover my ears and shut my eyes to the things I do not like that God tells me to do. But the time He cornered and caught me red-handed by this verse...:
Romans 2:
4Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness,
forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s
kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?
...I felt down on my knees (not literally) and cried out to God for His forgiveness realizing how He's been allowing good things and so much blessings to come upon my life without even being worthy of it.
Romans 2:
5But because of your stubbornness and your
unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath
against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when
his righteous judgment will be revealed.
I've been unrepentant to my sins, and all I am was headed by pride, taking advantage of His goodness in my life. Not realizing that all of it was intended for His glory and not mine, and for His honor, not mine!
...and when I heard this loud voice in my ear saying..., His voice saying my name twice louder than before saying... "stop trying to live for (Me) Jesus...let him live through you." It was a book authored by Charles Price, and that's the tool God had used to communicate with me and to understand what he really wants me to do.
Now, I'm preparing of what goes ahead of it...
James 1:
12Blessed are those who persevere under trial,
because when they have stood the test, they will
receive the crown of life that God has promised to
those who love him.
1 John 5:
3In fact, this
is love for God: to keep his commands. And his
commands are not burdensome, 4for everyone
born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory
that has overcome the world, even our faith.
"A victorious life through loving Him first and foremost,
and making Him always number 1 in our lives!"
"A commitment of loving Him and praising Him through thick and thin."
