Only in a Lifetime

So what if it takes a lifetime, an entire lifetime to mature, to grow, to know how to live out your freedom in Christ? What if all that Christ came to give and to make you to be was really already finished, but still, it required your lifetime to walk it out? Your entire lifetime.

Would that be alright, with you?

Would that be worth it, to you?

Because when every day stretches out long and hard, and every breath feels like barely living. Because the battle is so hard. That struggle from within, where your flesh screams out resistance, but you soul cries out longing for Christ, for Truth, for Rest.

And you feel like you have nothing to give, nothing to offer.

That is where God works best. In you. When in the sacrifice of self, where you have nothing to give but yourself, God is given freedom to your life. Finally. When you have given up on self, God is allowed in. To lead, to guide, to take over. Your one life.

And as you see Christ taking over, all you can do is to cry out, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

Because Christ has won the battle! And only when you finally have nothing to give to Him, do you see. That. Christ is enough. Christ is Lord. Christ is Saviour. Christ is Almighty and all-Powerful. In your life. Christ is. Life.

So what if it takes a lifetime to grow and mature into what God has for you? To learn how to live knowing Christ as Lord? So what!

It's only in a lifetime of surrender that all praise, all glory, all majesty and power and dominion and authority, is given to God through Christ Jesus. It is. Only in a lifetime.

A lifetime of growing and maturing and learning how to surrender. That Christ is lifted up, in a life, the entire life. For a lifetime.

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"Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! ..." - Romans 7:24-25

"Jesus replied, 'If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.'" - John 4:10 (NLT)

"To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen." - Jude 1:25