From selfish ambition to a heart filled with Christ's agape love

 “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” -1 Chorinthians 13:1-3

This concept has really been hitting home so much lately. For my actions are not always those of a loving heart but of a boastful one. I can say it a thousand times that I am serving to honor Jesus that I want Jesus to be glorified but secretly inside many times my actions and thoughts are not linked together. Many times I find that I am doing things out of selfish ambitions and ways to boast about God or Jesus or my faith. The truth is deep down I think the real motive is so I can boast about what is going on and what is being done through me and then it truly can take away from the heart of Jesus shining through. It then becomes what I did instead of what Jesus really did.

The concept can seem twisted, can come across to many as an act of goodness, selflessness or (as I love the term) sweetness. Who doesn't like being seen as a sweet caring person? Who wouldn't want to be known as the nice person? Who doesn't want to be the person everyone can say has a good heart? But if my heart is not in line with God’s heart and filled with Jesus love then all my actions all the things I do are a pointless waste of time. If I am doing all these nice things to serve others only to boast in my actions and myself worth then my actions are not out of love but out of selfish ambition. We are reminded by Paul in Phillipians 2: 3-4 to not do anything out of selfish ambition.

So how do I know if I am doing things out of love? Well first I know that in the story of Samuel finding King David (1 Samuel 15: 4-7) God tells Samuel that David’s brother who looks like he would fit the human bill for king is not the anointed one for God looks at the heart. This is true of all men. God looks at our hearts. He will hear a cry of willingness to do things in a God honoring manor. He also sees the selfish heart that craves to hear praise and good things from others. He knows the selfish desires of the heart and if my heart is not in line with what is right than nothing I do is correct and there is no real praise.

I know that in 1John 4:7-8 we are told to love one another. That love comes from God alone and anyone who knows God knows what love is anyone who does not know God does not know what love is.

I believe there are two things for me to learn from all this. The first is that the only reason I become convicted about the lack of real Christ-like love I show to others around me is because I know exactly what Love of God really is, what it really looks like. And the second thing for me to learn is how to allow God to really work in me and my heart and mind to teach me that I can have and serve with agape love. The type of love Jesus gave. He gave everything for the chance to be my Lord, my King and my friend expecting nothing in return! He cared enough to save me and love me and die for me and still though He can see my wicked heart still find a way to love me unconditionally. Because I know what this love is and I have it I can learn to do all the things which I love to do, which I use to do out of selfish ambition and vein conceit, and change those reasons into the right loving reasons to reach the lost and be a healthy and happy sister in Christ to those around me.

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

-1 John 4: 10-12

Change myself not the church

The last couple weeks God has really been doing a work on me. I am happy about this as it has brought pure joy and happiness and contentment to my heart. I have been shown many things in my life by the grace of God but none so clear to me as in recent events of my life of how Good and how Faithful and Pure the love of God is, not just for all but for me! I am becoming a freer soul and for that I am undoubtedly grateful for his perseverance, patience and goodness.

I am normally the one who points out flaws. I point out the things that I see in others who claim to be Christians and let it eat away at my soul.  This was causing me to be sad, uncomfortable and irritable with the Christian church as a whole. I have prayed many times over this and have asked God to help me love as he loves those people with all those problems. God is good, He answers prayers, and He has definitely come to the rescue of my soul.

I have for most of my life found the negative. The heart wrenching things that annoy me about other Christians and I have put much of my focus on those things. I have come far from the happily saved person that is excited about a new life in Christ. I focus on what others do or don’t do. I focus on what seems flawed or fake about others. I have been negative, impossible to get through to and even somewhat at times  I think evil in my thoughts towards others I do not understand or think I disagree with. I managed to always justified my thoughts and actions towards these people as good and just and faithful because I thought God would surely not use those people to further his kingdom.

But how wrong was I? I knew something had to change as I could no longer stand the person I was and the person I was headed to become. I was bitter, I was rude and I was out to prove that I was right and they were wrong. I would diligently pray that God would heal me. And thankfully the prayers were not answered in the way I thought. I thought God would answer my prayers by changing the hearts and minds of the people I thought needed changing. I thought God would surely bring their issues to light to prove how ungodly those people were. But the truth was, my thoughts were evil and not of God. I did not love them in a Godly way with Christ-like love. I saw several times that God was using these individuals and I was the one sitting on the sidelines begging Him to use me for his Glory and for his kingdom. But in truth He was putting me on the sidelines until I was able to face the facts. I was the problem.´

I really was the problem. The way my heart was, my mind set the way I let myself think about everything was so far off base. Not that I was evil on purpose but I was evil because my desires were not of a loving nature. The love of God wants no one to be destroyed or humiliated. The love of God wants all people to know Him and follow him. The love of God wants people to full comprehend what it means to be loved unconditionally while being flawed. God was using those “sinners” to further his kingdom while I was sitting there begging him in hopes that one day he would use me and I would feel useful for his kingdom.

I was lost, not lost as in unsaved but lost in my way of thinking. I was lost inside myself, in my own self-worth thinking I could be the answer to save the world. Just what was God’s problem with getting the show on the road and letting me show everyone how righteous and awesome and spiritual I was? That is how I thought. In true honesty as stupid as I sounded that was the bottom line I thought I was the woman to run the show. Thankfully God is bigger than me, and no amount of me begging him to change the people I saw that annoyed me was going to convince him that he needed to use me and not them.

So after many years of me thinking I was tough stuff I really had a lot of breakthroughs. Thankfully the quiet is when God really spoke to me. I realized probably about two weeks ago that my whole thought process was wrong. God didn't use the perfect people to further the kingdom. He uses people who are real, people who have real problems, and people who are open and vulnerable to their own sin issues. These people He was using, they weren't hypocritical, they were real. They were the real deal, with real problems with real issues they knew they had but they knew that God was going to use them anyway, flawed and all. These people might not have it all together but they do have God helping them find the way to help others see the beautiful light we have in Jesus. These people accepted God’s calling of their lives trusting God to use them even though they knew they were far from perfection.

I realized through this several things. 1) I had lost my excitement for the cause of Christ. 2) I had a few things I needed to get out of the way before being allowed to be used 3) I needed to surrender my negative attitude towards other to Him 4) I had to get over myself, get out of God’s way and wait for him to find ways to use me the way he saw fit.

When was younger,( and I mean elementary aged) I remember just being all excited about Jesus and what He did by dying on the cross and raising from the dead. I wanted all my classmates and friends to go to heaven. I wanted the world to know ‘my Jesus.’ But as I grew older and started living as an adult I lost that whole excitement. I don’t know how or when it happened it just did. I replaced that excitement with AWESOMENESS! (O.K. so not really.)

 I replaced it with my own thoughts of what I thought was a good Christian and the right Christian. I started learning things about what the Bible said and what I was taught in school and in church and Sunday school and really started thinking I knew it all. As you can imagine that is a HUGE turn off to other Christians around you. Add a know-it-all to the fact that I can’t stop talking and you have a person that is annoying and not so fun to listen to about Christ-likeness and God.

But that zeal I realized I lost it. I didn't have it anymore. I went back and realized that of all things the zeal I had was not an excitement for people to know “my Jesus” anymore it was for people to know “I am awesome stuff because of all the things I know about Jesus.”  So realizing this I asked God to help me. I needed that excitement back. Thankfully He was there to bless that prayer with a “YES” and the last week and a half has been nothing but serious Godly awesomeness.

I am so excited. I would just love to talk about ‘My Jesus” again and share so much of Him with so many people. I want my friends to know that they can have their own life with ‘My Jesus!’ I want my kids to know, my family to know.  I want everyone to be in love with Jesus the way I can say I am in-love with Jesus.

He is mighty to save all! There is nothing too great that Jesus cannot break through and save you from. He is there to give peace, and healing and a great source for strength when you cannot stand alone. He is so awesome! He saves the people you think are unsaveable; the murderers, the adulterous people, the people on the street you think should be thrown into the darkest hole you can find. My Jesus is the Jesus of all people. He is more than just that story you've been told a thousand times. He is more than something to just know about. He is someone who loves unconditionally, that wants nothing more than to be a part of your life, be LORD of your life and heal your hurts, take your hand and lead you through life. Accepting Jesus to be Lord of your life doesn't mean life will be perfectly easy but it does mean He will be there to guide you through it all, make it easier and carry you through whatever you go through.

My Jesus, was awesome enough to save me then he is awesome enough to save anyone! He wants to be your Jesus, your personal Savior from your self and sin!

Attention Christian Wives; it's ok to look SEXY!!!

Ladies, especially those of you who are married let me just say this to ya straight; There is nothing wrong with being attractive and dare I say it? LOOKIN" SEXY!!! I know who would have thought? I know several of you lovely God fearing women might just have gasped a little in horror at the words.

But let’s face it, we complain if we think our husband is even thinking another lady is more attractive than us let alone if they really were even thinking thoughts beyond that at all. But why do we get upset if they see someone they are attracted too? After all they are human and it doesn’t make them any less of a Godly man if they see a woman whom they are attracted to physically. The only time it is sin is if they act upon that thought. But the majority of us are a jealous breed. We like to be the center of his thought processes especially when it comes to the physical realm of life.

But let’s shoot straight here with each other. Who are we kidding? I mean we aren’t all born to be models right? I agree we are all born with different traits that aren’t necessarily considered beautiful by all humans, but there is nothing wrong at all with attempting our best to be attractive as possible for our spouse.

I have had many conversations with women regarding how I would like to look now that I am done having children.  Yes, when I talk about how I would like to look I say the words, “I would like to look and feel sexy.” I get horrific stares, comments about how that isn’t possible anymore for us to be that way since I have had kids and other, what I would call, stupid comments. Why is it so terrible to want to be attractive as possible for my spouse? There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to look and feel as sexy as possible. God does not condemn us for wanting to be attractive for our mate. It is wrong to try and be that way to impress other people or try and attract other men.  God is not against the idea of you dressing in a sexy (not slutty) way for your spouse.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with it!!!

God tells us to honor, love and respect our husband and there is no better way to try and do that then to look as good as you possibly can for him. I don’t mean as far as having an eating disorder to be thin or pounding on the make up to look like a clown. But, I am saying that if you need to work out a bit because he seems attracted to a toner look, then try it!  If you want to put on a little make up to make the features he loves stand out then by all means go for it! There is nothing wrong with going all out for your spouse to look amazing for him. There is however something wrong with not trying to find ways to keep his eyes on you and you only.

My husband and I talk openly about our attractions to each other or even about the human body in general. My husband has called me sexy and hot and beautiful in all forms of my figure, before kids, during pregnancy and after pregnancies. It’s not that while I was pregnant I was a super attractive pregnant person but on occasion I would try and doll up a bit just for him to let him know I wanted his eyes on me still.  I do not think that I am the sexiest being on the planet or even God’s gift to all men. I do know I am God’s gift to one man, my spouse! And he is awesome and deserves the best I can possibly give him, emotionally, spiritually and yes, even physically.

When women go around not dolling themselves up for their spouse or putting in an effort to really try and be attractive for them who is to blame your spouse when he starts seeing things he is attracted too and holding their eyes on it a bit longer? When you don’t care to doll up for him ever or at least try to be attractive to him in some sort of fashion what is he suppose to think? Well let’s face it he is going to start thinking that you really don’t care if he looks at others because you definitely aren’t trying to keep him looking at you. Just like when you were dating you would doll up for him you should still do the same on occasion and let him know that you want his eyes on you. It is ok to be sexy, look sexy, dress in a matter that would catch your husband attention and make him desire you. (if you are in public try to abstain from looking slutty you don’t need to be trying to catch every persons attention especially not the 16 year old boys)

I know in the Christian world we never talk about this stuff because it’s too touchy feely, but I feel like it’s a discussion that needs to be had. As a Christian woman our job as a spouse is to help keep our husbands on track. Our husbands already face a rough enough challenge every day they open their eyes in this world as the pornography is just flooding everything these days, from simple adds on tv, to covers of magazines that you see in the checkout lines in the grocery store. If our job as a wife is to stand beside him and help to keep him on the right track with his faith then part of our job is to be as sexy and attractive to him as we possibly can. The only way you are ever going to be able to keep his eyes from adverting to something is by trying your best to fulfill being his every need that doesn’t just mean spiritually, it also means physically.  

I don’t need to look sexy to everyone just sexy to him!