Sometimes, God Hits Me Upside the Head.

This morning was one of those mornings. Before 6:00 Chad and I had run my mile. (Shaved almost a minute off of Tuesday's run time!) I was showered and he was out for his 45 minute bike ride/15 minute run. (He's in tri training for a 1/2 Ironman in September) The girls were sound asleep and I was ready for my first cup of coffee in 10 days and some serious time with my Savior.

In my time with God I use Oswald Chambers "My Utmost for His Highest". This morning was all about sanctification. A big ole' church word isn't it?! Before the first paragraph had ended, Chambers was all over my toes.

Here is the part that slapped me upside the head.

"Am I willing to reduce myself simply to "me", determinedly to strip myself of all my friends think of me, of all I think of myself and to hand that simple naked self over to God? Immediately I am, he will sanctify me wholly, and my life will be free from earnestness in connection with everything but God."

"ME". The me that God intended. Not the me that struggles to open the fist and let go of control. NOT the me that fights worry. NOT the me that worries about what others are thinking about me. NO. I can not live, REALLY live with that "me".

I so long to, as Chambers describes, for that "me" to be identified with Jesus in death. Because I know that then and only then I will live.

Then He can complete the work He began in me. And how I want Him to do that! I want to hear Him say "well done". I want His kingdom to advance and I want to be part of it. Even more than that, I want Him.

I just want Jesus. "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death" Phil. 3:10

After what He has done for me, how can I not offer that "naked self" to Him?

The last line in today's Chambers has so stuck w/ me.

"Sanctification is not something Jesus Christ puts into me: it is Himself in me."

That is a heavy, mighty, awe-inspiring thought isn't it? I want to live today with the realization that Jesus is alive, LIVING IN ME. That thought alone is changing how I think. How I act and more importantly RE-act. It changes everything.

This verse was at the end of the Chambers devotion today. 1 Corinthians 1:30-31

And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."

I will boast in my Lord because apart from Him I have no good thing! (Psalm 16:2) I must decrease, He must increase. Not Stephanie, but Jesus. That is what I want others to see when they look at me.