Raw, unedited, picture of my brain....and it's ugly.

This is a raw, unedited, picture of my mind today. 

This week I am alone most of the day.  Both girls are out of town and I am seizing the opportunity to catch up on some neglected areas.  One of those areas was to finish a study I have been working my way through.  Boy have I needed this time.

The last month has been full of ups and downs. Highs from incredible times of service and lows from the most bizarre situations. Situations that have left me face down before the Lord, crying out for His healing hand.  In the last week, my phone has blown up with prayer requests ranging from tragic accidents and marriages in crisis, to friendships navigating misunderstandings. 

My heart is heavy and my mind spinning with questions particularly in one area. The only thing I know to do, is to go to His word.  I have searched the scriptures and asked God to help me understand the "why" of a specific situation.  As He promised, His word gave the answer and understanding I needed.  But I still found myself wrestling with how Christians could stoop low and especially adult Christians act a particular way.  Today He answered in a way that astounded me.

This quote from Beth Moore's "Jesus, The One and Only, explained exactly what God's word had already put on my heart.

Compromising people can't stand the site of excellence, and miserable people can't stand the site of happiness.

Not only did God use this (along with the rest of this day's homework) to help me understand....He slapped me in the head and pointed out some areas where I was compromising. 

And it hurt. It hurt because I had not even realized I was compromising!  Funny how sly the enemy is isn't it?  

We stand proudly behind our church attendance, position, title..... and look soooo put together on Sunday. But outside the walls of our church our lifestyle really doesn't look any different than the next person.

We have compromised. 

Our Twitter or Facebook updates are asking for prayer or quoting some cute spiritual saying one minute, and the next our updates and pictures are questionable and quite frankly, grieve the heart of God.

We have compromised.

And not only have we compromised, we poke fun of Christians who have not.  Why do we do that?

Personally, I believe it is because we see in them exactly what we know we should be doing. It makes us uncomfortable. 

We have, as God convicted me again today, sacrificed personal holiness on the altar of relevance. 

God did not call me to be relevant.  He called me to be holy. 

Today, more than ever before I feel this overwhelming urgency for believers to be willing to step to a deeper place with the Lord. A place that will demand that we look different, act different, entertain ourselves differently... A place that will demand us to be set apart... Please hear me NOT a list of rules, we have tried that and it obviously didn't work. 

Rather, have a life that lives Matthew 5:16. I love it here in the Amplified Version

Let your light so shine before men that they may see your moral excellence and your praiseworthy, noble, and good deeds and recognize and honor and praise and glorify your Father Who is in heaven.

Something tells me we don't have much time left here.  We must, I must, live in a way that consistently points people to Jesus Christ. 

Our pastor challenged us Sunday morning to stop simply singing the words trust and obey and DO THEM. 

My "obey" this week was to stop compromising in a very specific area and trust that God is enough to handle the consequences to my obedience.