There Is Where
So you've fallen apart, a time or two. Such that you are ashamed of your actions. Such that your uncontrollable behaviour has mounted and took flight. And in that moment, you’ve fallen apart. With those bouts of anger, through those harsh words of the tongue. Yes, all of them works of the flesh that take over. They cause you to stumble, and to fall.
And, yeah, you've fallen hard, a time or two.
Oh, how you know it. How the pain, how the shame and the despair, it all clings to you. And it pulls you out of God's will for your life. So you fear the fall, and you hide it, and you wail over it. Because you know it. Oh, the despair! Of it!
But you, there. Stop, right there! Because there is where the seeking must begin. There is where the power of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ must begin. In your life. It must. So that the looking up, the surrendering, the softening. They all happen. And grace abounds. For that is how.
How sanctification happens. How freedom happens. How spiritual maturity happens. Only in the seeking, the seeking that leads to the receiving, of grace. After the fall.
And it is good. There.
For there is where life begins.
Now you, rejoice! Because there is exactly where, exactly how, exactly when, you must be.
Where utter despair in yourself flows from the desperate state you are in, and the dire need you have because of your fallen state. Because you have seen, are reminded of, and you know, your condition apart from Christ. So there, you cry out to the Lord. And you run to Him. And it is good. It is good to be there, where you are seeking for the Lord Jesus Christ. Where you find His grace to overflow in abundance towards you. There is where. In Christ, in submission to the Spirit and surrender to the Father. There is where life is found. And it is good.
Because there is where you will hear His call, and you will obey His call. When you submit to and follow Him. Because you know you cannot do it, you cannot do this life, cannot grow this life, aahh, you cannot! But He can. Amazing grace! He can live the life He intended to give you. He can rise up victorious in you. He can guide and lead and show you more of Him. And He will, in you who have surrendered to Him. He will, in you! For that’s grace!
It’s where complete abundance and spiritual maturity simply are. In surrender to Christ.
And it’s where the bouts of the flesh lose their grip on you. In surrender to Christ.
Yes, there is where. Because the receiving more of grace always turns into the receiving more of Christ!
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“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.- 2 Corinthians 3:17-18
“And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” - Galatians 5:24
“for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” - 2 Timothy 1:7