From Glory To Glory
Hello friends and welcome back to 'Understanding', a series here on my blog about my word for 2024.
{This is the third installment, so if you are new, I want to catch you up to speed and provide a little context:
For the past few years, at the beginning of the year, I have been praying and asking God for a word. You could call this word a landmark, something that I can keep coming back to to reflect on throughout the year. I never hear these words from God audibly. Instead, God intercedes my thoughts. This experience comes with a fullness, or a warmth, that seems to radiate straight from my heart. It is hard for me to explain, but not hard for me to notice. It overcomes me out of the blue and in a way that leaves me without a doubt that it's God, truly God, and not just my own thoughts. Long story short, my 'word of the year' has always summed up the year beautifully and in ways that I could never imagine or guess beforehand.}
Last time we dove into chapters 36 and 37 of the book of Job where God revealed some humbling things to me concerning my new intake of understanding this year. Through these scriptures, He made it clear to me that I need to look at the things I am grasping with a perspective of humility, that this new 'building up of understanding' isn't about me, but it's about what God is doing through me.
All of this linked up with the first installment of this series where we talking about what I have come to call 'the building block of understanding', which is knowing the difference between 'our ways' and 'God's ways'. In the putting off of 'our ways' or 'the old man', we become more God-focused which greatly affects our level of understanding on a day to day basis. How did I come to this conclusion? Well, being God-focused helps us to remove the lenses of earthly mentality that, because of our sinful nature, greatly skews our perception of things. And that perception can ultimately alter the way we come to understand things. That is why, especially in this season of my life, it is so important that I am continually God-focused.
At the end of the last post, I mentioned that God told me that I cannot do anything without Him, that I need constant Holy Spirit leading. But with Him and His guidance, I am a walking testimony, a story of His glory being played out. Therefore, I need to be a testament of His goodness through sharing the things He has helped me to understand.
Speaking of understanding, I am learning that His desire for me is that I come to grasp His truth.
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
Psalm 51:6 ESV
With this verse on my mind, and while looking at my summary of this series so far, I am realizing that it all starts with the heart! In fact, these specific things that I have mentioned in this very series actually reveal the posture of my heart:
my perspective on things
whether or not I am rebuking 'my ways' and putting on 'God's ways'
if I am open to correction or have an "I am right" attitude
whether or not I am humble
if I am taking charge myself or seeking guidance from the Holy Spirit
if I am God-focused or self-focused
And the biggest one dealing with my ability to understand things this year:
my motives for seeking truth (is it to puff myself up or do I truly desire to have a better understanding of my God?)
Man, this Understanding Series has been rough, but a little conviction is never a bad thing. It is the only way we can see what we need to change in our lives. So, how do we go about initiating that change? How do we ditch self focus, an earthly prospective, and all the ways of the 'old man'? This can only be done through God, but the process starts by turning away from those things. When we do, I believe God has a way of changing our hearts that makes us no longer desire to do them. He also transforms the way we think so that we view things more akin to the way He does. In other words - He gives us a Heavenly perspective.
Romans 12:2 says this:
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (ESV)
This transformation, in my experience, requires me to be open to correction and requires me to actually desire to be transformed. If I don't want to be transformed and refuse to view things the way He does, then 'my stubborn will' takes over and God's will for me gets pushed out of my mind completely. Then, self focus is able to rule my thoughts and I view things only the way I want to see them. In this state of mind, the way I want to see things are, naturally, viewed through the lenses of my sinful nature. That's when things get twisted and they get twisted FAST. You can see evidence of this in our culture - how the truth gets twisted to fit a narrative or an opinion. When self focus rules our thoughts, we do this without even realizing it.
Of course, this transformation of our mind doesn't rid us of our sinful nature, while still in the flesh we will never be rid of it, but as we learn, grow, and continue to be transformed by God, we get closer and closer to reflecting Christ and knowing His will. In fact, I am learning that reflecting Christ requires embracing God's will no matter what, which is exactly what Christ did on the cross, and embracing God's will requires me to let go of control of my life.
So, how do we ultimately let go of control? I haven't quite got an answer for you guys on this one. This is still something I am learning myself and I will probably continue learning it for my entire life here on earth, but I do know that trust helps a whole lot. Trusting God that everything is going to work out for the greater 'YES' is the first step. This is no easy task. I am still learning how to be completely raw with the Lord and put complete control in His hands. Sometimes, I fork over control only to snatch it back as soon as things go south or as soon as I don't understand something.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
Proverbs 3:5 (NKJV)
Another concept of understanding rises to the surface with this verse. Though my understanding may be multiplying in this season, ultimately I cannot rely on it. I have to trust God more than I trust my ability to understand. After all, my understanding might get shifted around due to my sinful nature, but my God, my Rock, will always be solid and stationary.
At first, I was kind of surprised that I wasn't hearing a lot of synonyms like 'wisdom' and 'knowledge' from God about my word 'understanding', but instead He was giving me words like 'trust' and 'renewal'. Words that didn't even seem to link up with my word. Now, I can kind of see why, in light of Proverbs 3:5, because I was never meant to rely on the head knowledge aspect in the first place.
His goal for giving me understanding this year isn't to fill my head with things like knowledge and wisdom, but so that I can better live out what I learn, so that I can reflect Christ more and more, and so that I can be be transformed more and more, 'from glory to glory' (2 Corinthians 3:18). And, just maybe so that I can grasp joy more and more...
