I have been saved ever since I was a boy, and my whole life has been more or less trying to be like Jesus. It is so frustrating because I see an area that needs to be cleaned up (morally speaking) and then another area gets out of whack. I have never been able to do it very well. Something God has been teaching me lately, is that righteousness doesn’t come by human effort, it comes through God breaking us in different areas. Breaking our will, breaking our pride, breaking our selfishness, breaking our identiy, breaking whatever part of us is in the way for Him to bring about the transformation He seeks. Pastor Jim Cymbala put it this way in a sermon he preached several years ago: “For God to deliver us from an addiction is easy, He can do it in a moment, but for Him to deliver us from ourselves takes years”. The problem is that if you resist the work God is trying to do in your life, you will soon slide back into the addictions you have been delivered from. It is difficult because submitting to God’s breaking work in our lives means letting go of our right to control our lives. There is the fear of losing control of your life, or of God asking too much or doing something that is harmful to you. That is where trusting God comes in. Trusting God knows what He is doing and loving and worshipping Him in the midst of whatever He is bringing you through. I have discovered through what limited experiences I have had of God doing His breaking work in my life, that love and humility and tenderness and consideration begin to spring up all by themselves, without any effort. As we die to ourselves, Christ remakes us into something beautiful.
Galatians 2:20 – I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.