Forthright Fixation

Thanks, Hännah, for these honest, provoking words that turn our gaze to the Savior.

You know the sort of day—when you wake up in a funk and can’t shake the overwhelming power of your own selfishness, and the very last thing you want to do is to humble yourself and meet with the Lord. You’re tired, cranky, and would be just so happy if you manage to get through today. But as the day progresses, you begin to feel more and more helpless. You can’t hold it together…and you can’t figure out why. At every turn you’re met by more and more proof of your frailty and depravity. Everything’s going wrong, and it’s all rooted deep in the very nature of who you are.

I’m faced by this all the time. Sin, as a friend commented the other day, “rears its ugly head” and bares its teeth in the face of my desire to be humble and seek the Lord as the one delight of my heart. By my very nature, though, that would be quite impossible. I can’t even begin to desire God unless He changes my heart. I can’t begin to obey Him and love Him unless He changes my heart. I can’t walk in His ways unless He changes my heart.

What’s amazing to me is that as nasty as I am, He still pursues me each day and wants my heart to be wholly His. Some heart—it’s encrusted with sin and filth and utterly in rebellion to Him. But He glories in making rebels His children and in adopting them—us!—into His love. I don’t deserve it. I can’t even want it on my own. But He sees my frail, sick soul, and becomes my strength, my light, my Father. He died that I might live. How astounding is that?

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” (Romans 5:6-11, ESV)

By this love and this Lord, we have more than we need to get through these days and worse, too. He is more than sufficient and more than good to us. Words cannot begin to express the depth and richness of who He is.

Filed under: Grace, Joy in Christ, Knowing God, Weakness