On Thursday night this past week, I started Oswald Chamber’s devotional “My Utmost for His Highest.” He started with a passage found in Philippians 1:18-21 which says, “Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” The devotional talked about the need to live at our best for the glory of God (to be our utmost for his highest). It also briefly discussed living holy lives and being unashamed by following God’s will.
This theme came up the next night. I attended a worship service at a local church. As we sang a song about revival, I started thinking of some theme words that I could focus on in the year 2015. The word “power” specifically came to mind. When I think of this word I think not my own power, but of God’s. As I meditated on the word “power” I was reminded of God’s power to heal, restore, redeem, and revive among many other things.
The topic of that night’s sermon was the blood of Christ. This went perfectly with some of the things God had already been working on with me. I was reminded of the power that exists in the blood of Christ. When Jesus shed his blood on the cross he took my place but also paid the price for my sins. Because of that, I am free from all punishment of my sin. When I chose to be washed in the blood of Christ, or accept the gift of salvation, the price was paid. That means that even though I will continue to sin, I don’t deserve the guilt or shame anymore. That seems like a lofty statement, I know, but it is the truth! I once deserved the guilt and shame from sin. But when I let Jesus pay the price for my sin, it was paid in full. That means I don’t have to deserve that any longer. I am free! I don’t think we let that sink in often enough. Many Christians don’t seem to understand the true weight of what Jesus did on the cross when he shed his blood for us and the weight in the freedom that he offers. We are free from condemnation, guilt, shame, and the punishment of sin. It has been paid and we don’t deserve it anymore. That’s something to be excited about!
During another worship song, I found myself praying, “God, I am sorry for my sin. I’m sorry for continually turning against you. Heal me of my sin. I want to live life unashamed. I want to live a life of integrity. I want to live life wide open. I fully commit myself to you. I will serve you alone. Show me the power of your spirit so that I will choose you and not my flesh. Fill me with so much of you that there is not room for me. Purify my heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me.” As I prayed, “I want to live life wide open,” I paused. I truly believe that phrase was from God, not me. I took some time to meditate on what that really meant.
I decided that it means this: I want to live a life where I don’t have to be ashamed about anything. I want my life to be able to be an open door so that people could look over every inch of it without me being afraid of what they might find. I want to live a guilt free life. I want to live a life of integrity. I want to walk in the freedom that Christ offers. In 2015, I want to live wide open.
I need to experience God’s power in a few different ways in order for that to happen. For starters, I need to experience the power of God’s healing. There’s a lot of junk and sin that has already happened in my life. To live wide open, I must experience the healing power of God. I must step into the healing that God offers in order to be redeemed from the sins of yesterday in order to keep from being ashamed of them today. Secondly, I have to experience the power of God’s presence in my life. In the passage I quoted above, Paul expresses the desire to be ashamed of nothing but he mentions that in order to do so, he needs the help of the Holy Spirit. In order to live wide open, I must experience and search for the power of God’s presence. This power is able to help me turn from temptation when I want nothing more than to give in. This power destroys the temptations of my flesh and replaces them with the satisfaction of God’s presence. Lastly, I need to experience the power of God’s filling. Living wide open, ridding my life of addictions, sins, and guilt creates room in my life to be filled with something else. Living wide open means that I am ridding my life of myself in order to be filled with God instead. As Paul states in the passage above: “To live is Christ, and to die is gain.” This sums up the Christ-following lifestyle of self-denial in order to filled something much better: the Holy Spirit.
So in 2015, I’m setting out to discover the true power of God in order to start living my life wide open.
