My heart for you in this season
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Here is my heart for you. This season of an election year, COVID quarantines, economic hardships, protests over racial tensions and police brutality, and arguments over almost everything have led me to direct our hearts to the Word of God.
When we decide to follow Jesus Christ we are choosing to make Him the Lord of our life. That means we are no longer the lords of our own lives. Jesus is! Our allegiance as Christians is to obey God and His Word. We give up our rights of independence and surrender them to a master. We are slaves. Jesus is the master.
Through His great love and sacrifice, we have been given the most valuable gift of all time - our salvation! Then God added an additional gift of the ongoing presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. This is a gift beyond measure! It is a free gift to receive, but it comes with an agreement to surrender our right to choose how we live and how we treat others to the way of Jesus. His way is counterintuitive to the way of the world, but it is also so much better.
"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus." Philippians 2:3-5
My prayer is that this kind of biblical, Spirit-led, Christ-like humility will be our primary filter for how we interact with one another, how we engage in political discourse, how we have conversations about race, how we think through our actions regarding COVID, how we use our money, how we post and comment on social media, how we act when we are right and someone else is wrong, how we care for the poor and marginalized, how we respond to people with whom we disagree, and so much more.
My heart has been grieving lately that self-interest and personal rights seem to be the primary motivation of Christians in America and I pray for that to change. I’m praying for my heart that needs to change as well. Will you join me and pray for that to change in your heart?
I’ve been meditating on Philippians a lot this week. Will you also take some time to read Philippians over and over? Or listen to it on an app like Dwell? It could be a great sabbath practice this week. Let God’s Word and the Holy Spirit change your heart to live and love more like Jesus in the ways God desires rather than social media, news media, politicians or advertisements.
May the Lord bless you and keep you,
Eric Wakeling