Real Christ-likeness and healing comes when we willingly offer our whole lives to God... The good, the bad, and the absolute worst parts about us. Let God expose you. Stop thinking that you(Christian or not) have to have it all together to come before God. God wants to be revealed through the transformation in lives of real people. Richard Foster writes: The offering of ourselves can only be the offering of our lived experience, because this alone is who we are. And who we are— not who we want to be— is the only offering we have to give. We give God therefore not just our strengths but also our weaknesses, not just our giftedness but also our brokenness. Our duplicity, our lust, our narcissism, our sloth— all are laid on the altar of sacrifice. We must not deny or ignore the depth of our evil, for, paradoxically, our sinfulness becomes our bread. When in honesty we accept the evil that is in us as part of the truth about ourselves and offer that truth up to God, we are in a mysterious way nourished. Even the truth about our shadow side sets us free (John 8:32). There is, therefore, no need to repress, suppress, or sublimate any of God’s truth about ourselves. Full, total, unvarnished self- knowledge is the bread by which we are sustained. A yes to life means an honest recognition of our own evil, but it is also a yes to God, who in the midst of our evil sustains us and draws us into his righteousness. (Pg. 52) Prayer - 10th Anniversary Edition: Finding the Hearts True Home by Richard J. Foster amazon/dp/B000FC13DQ/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_jQxEub1A4JS3Y
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 08:03:22 +0000