Living From God – Not For God

September 19, 2008 at 1:53 pm (Grace Insights)

Hello Everyone,

Have you ever said this statement or made this commitment, “I’m going to start living for God!”  If you are like me, growing up you may have heard a lot of people encouraging you to “Live for God”.  My interpretation of that was that I needed to find out what the Bible said about what God expected of a Christian and I needed to fulfill those expectations and then I would be a good christian and God would be pleased with me.  So I worked really, really hard at finding out those expectations and attempting to live up to them.  Now, don’t misunderstand…I really loved God and wanted to please Him.  So I worked really hard at this and was completly sincere in everything I did.  I loved going to church and loved my friends that I hung out with.  I believe we all had a sincere love for God and wanted to please God. 

I don’t think those that taught us to “Live for God” realized what they were saying nor did they mean to bring confusion into our lives.  Their teaching at that time accomplished God’s purposes in me and kept me out of a lot of trouble that could have reeked havoc in my life.  The trouble that I found myself in years later was that I felt like I never could measure up to God’s standards and that it was never enough.  I couldn’t understand after I had worked so hard for so long that the idea of “success” that I was looking for in my relationship with God and ministry seemed so illusive. 

At one point I felt successful-like everything was going well and then I arrived at a place and it was like the bottom feel out.  No matter how hard I worked I just couldn’t be successful.  I even resorted to praying harder and more often, I spent more time studing the Bible and begging God to please intervene.  I memorized more scripture, got an accountability partner and witnessed more.  At one point, I remember thinking that because I wasn’t tithing more God was punishing me.  Yet, the intervention that I prayed for never seemed to happen.  I felt abandoned and left by God.  I would pray and felt as if my prayers bounced off the ceiling and came right back and hit me in the head.  I did not know that all the while, God was there, protecting me but allowing me to go through a process called brokenness.  This process enabled me to see that all of my efforts would never be good enough and that Christ had already done all the work on the cross.  He did love me and He was pleased with me.  I could quit my striving and working hard to please Him.

Jesus did this exact same thing when He began his earthly ministry.  The religious establishment would teach their rules and regulations and Jesus would come along and raise the bar on them.  One example was when they taught about adultery and Jesus came along and said if you even looked at a women with lust in your heart then you had committed adultery with her.  Another was if anyone wants to sue you and take your tunic (undershirt) then give him your coat also; or if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.  Jesus caps off some of this teaching by saying, “You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  Now, there’s a standard to attempt to live up to!  Wow….that makes me tired just thinking about it.  What was Jesus meaning here?  I have heard many debate and try to explain away what all this means.  I myself did that many times.  FYI….a legalist will always have an explanation for these verses….excuses really, because they can’t live up to that standard and that is exactly what I think Jesus was up to here.  He wanted all of us across time to see and realize that we could never live up to this standard so we would get to the end of ourselves and quit trying.  At this point we then look to Him and see the sufficiency of the cross and realize that in Christ all of our needs are met and we can receive the beautiful gift of His love and acceptance of us.  What a precious relationhip we can then experience with Father!  I call it “Living Loved”.  I am full, complete, satisfied, valued and worth everything to my Father in heaven who made the ultimate sacrifice for me.  He literally put my needs before Himself and made it possible for me to be crucified with Him and receive His life inside of me.  I am now a new creation in Him.  I don’t have to work hard or earn anything.  It is all a free gift that I can rest in and experience on a daily bases. 

Do I serve the Lord now, you may ask?  Yes!  But with a whole new perspective.  I don’t live FOR God anymore…I live FROM God now.  Meaning, I allow Christ, who is my very life to express Himself in and through me.  I live out of Christ strength not my own.  As Paul said in Gal. 2:20,“I am curcified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  This life that I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”  The old Dana is now dead and now Christ is living through me. 

Think about these verses from the Message out of Galatians 3, “Let me put this question to you:  How did your new life begin?  Was it by working your heads off to please God?  Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you?  Are you going to continue this craziness?  For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God.  If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it?  Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing?  It is not yet a total loss, but it certaintly will be if you keep this up!  Answer this question:  Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, His Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does He do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust Him to do them in you?  Don’t these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham?  He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God.

Later in the chapter Paul says, “And that means that anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure.” 

And later he says, “The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way.  The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him.  Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you.”

Well, I guess that about sums up this one!  Rest….and live FROM Him and not FOR Him!

Dana

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A Radical New Idea for NLD

September 12, 2008 at 2:51 pm (Our Faith Journey)

Hello Everyone,

I know it has been some time since we have posted a blog.  There has been much going on around here along with the normal means of business and ministry for the last several weeks and we appreciate your patience.  For those of you that have not heard, Tony’s (my husband) Grandfather did pass away and we were out of town for the funeral and have since been trying to get caught back up.  Rebecca has been on vacation this week enjoying the beaches of Florida in between hurricanes.  We will see what kind of savage tan she comes back with!  Tony and I have been holding down the fort and it has only been Christ through us that we have survived!! 

Let me share with you a new opportunity that it appears that Father is giving us.  It has been our hearts desire and prayer from the beginning of NLD (New Life Design) that we not do ministry events just because every other ministry similar to ours does that event.  We want to be uniquely who God desires NLD to be.  We have been asked, “Are you going to do one of those Grace Life Conferences?”  Well, we would like to but it just hasn’t been time yet.  There have been several other ideas we have “kicked around” and yet, Father just hasn’t given us a peace about them.  But one thing that we have begun to see emerge over the last month is this idea to provide an authentic, small group Bible study for our clients, former clients and friends.  There was a series of really strange events that began happening to confirm this really radical idea that Rebecca and I had been tossing around off and on for most of the summer.  One of these events that started happening was that several of our clients started to meet each other.  Obviously, we operate under a code of confidentiality and I tell our clients that no one will ever know you are going through our coaching process unless you tell them because we can not.  It just so happens that several of our clients go to the same church in the area and through a series of random events one couple came in for their session announcing that they had meet this other couple.  Well, you can image my surprise.  They ended up sharing a meal together and really making a connection and sharing about what they are learning in the process and how Father is changing their lives.  So much of what the couples said was exactly what Rebecca and I had talked about providing through a small group.  This was just one of the things that Father used to confirm this idea with us.

Another thought that had continued to emerge in me was this complete paradigm shift in thinking about church, small groups etc….  My heart has always been about being relational verses being involved in Religion.  But recently, I have really gotten a better grasp at what being relational actually means.  It doesn’t mean that you attend a small group or Sunday school class with your church; It is so much more than that.  The relational part starts with being relational with Father – receiving, embracing and walking in the reality of Father’s affection for us.  When that is happening on a moment by moment basis in our daily lives we begin to know more of what it means to love others.  We have to experience being well loved by Father first before we can love others well.  As we are walking in Father’s affection we become convinced of our identity, acceptance, purpose and are so satisfied and fulfilled with Father and His work in our lives.  At that point, His perfect love drives out our fear of being rejected and left alone so we can, in a healthy way, risk being open with one another and loving each other.  I have sinced that this is to be a key characteristic of NLD and a key point that we are to teach our clients.

So, with that said we are looking forward to beginning a small group Bible study through the ministry of NLD on Tuesday, October 7 at 6:30pm.  We will be meeting here at our offices every OTHER week and the Study we will be going through is called the Grace Walk Experience, a 9 week study writen by Steve McVey.  This group is open to any of our current clients, former clients, their spouses and friends of NLD.  If you would like to be apart of this group please call Rebecca or myself or email us to get your name on the list.  It is a “first come, first serve” basis as we can only take 12 members at a time. 

We desire this group to grow into a place of being real and authentic with each other.  No masks allowed here!  The uniqueness of a group like this is that if you are going through the coaching experience or have gone through it you know that you have no reason to impress, put on aires, feel the need to conform, please or act like you have it all together.  The process that we take people through is for every Christian – but the unfortunate, yet maybe the fortortunate thing is that you don’t pick up the phone to call someone like me and commit to this process unless you have found yourself at the bottom of the barrell.  Lessons learned at the “Bottom of the Barrell” prove to be grace centered and forever life altering.  One of these days I am going to write up a teaching series entitled “Lessons Learned @ The Bottom of The Barrell”  Humility becomes a huge focus in those lessons that we learn and that coupled with embracing your identity in Christ just seems to disarm the need to put up a good front or implore a “keep up your image” philosophy.  Therefore, my hope is that in this group as we genuinely connect with each other, hearing each others stories and studying God’s Truth we will become real and authentic with each other.  I think it is at this point where Christ as our very life will then flow out of us and spill out all over each other bringing sweet healing to our wounds.  Yes, no man is an island and we do need each other on this journey.  Come experience a “New Design for Living” with us here at NLD.

Dana

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