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About This Life
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"About This Life" (Acts 5:20) # 7

          It has already been stated that contemplation is a "transformative gaze": I become the one whom I behold in this gaze of silent love within my heart. This transformation involves a process of conversion into and discovery of my true self which is Jesus: "Him whom my heart loves" (Songs 3:2). Serious contemplation will always involve a process of dying to a false self and a rising into awareness of my true self.

          In Hosea 11:1 the Lord speaks through the Prophet, "When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son."  Because God loves me so intensely, He calls me out of "Egypt"--out of the childish, immaturity of my false self with its poor, sinful, compromising choices--into the full maturity of spiritual manhood. As St. Paul states in 1Cr.13:11, "When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things."  This "man" is Jesus fully alive in the Spirit within me! God is always calling forth the "true Son", Jesus, from within my humanity. Hence, there is a need for both my mind and heart to be reformed if I am to recognize and respond to love. God is love--the most dynamic communion of intense, relational love. Because God is goodness and holiness itself, my relationship with Him will always be one of "transforming" love. For, He wants me to be like Himself.

          The first real step towards growth in my true identity can only come about by allowing the holy Spirit to reveal my sinfulness to me. It is in the light of his love for me that my sinfulness is revealed. My sin should always be situated within the context of a personal love relationship with my loving, Heavenly Father. The more intimately and personally aware I become of God's love for me, the more my sense of sinfulness is revealed. I need to pray that the Spirit will reveal my sins to me if I truly desire to know myself.

          If I really could know how much God loves me, I would be intensely aware of my sinfulness. I need to see what God sees for God alone sees my sinfulness for what it truly is: A choice against love. Sin is a disappointment to God. I need to feel this within. The blindness of my unbelief must be pierced by the light of God's loving truth. For, there are areas in my heart where I am still not truly free--not truly myself--because Jesus is not lord for me there yet. In these parts of my heart, I have not humbly acknowledged sin! Hence, I am not yet experiencing the truth of God's love for me there yet. Only the truth, Who is Jesus, can set me free!

Scriptures: Is. 6:1-8; 2 Cr. 7:10; Rom. 2:4

Questions:

1)   Have I begun to beg the holy Spirit to reveal my sinfulness to me?

2)   Is sin only a moralistic examination of conscience without any reference to a personal relationship with God for me?

         

         

               

         

                  

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