There is a tremendous difference between a satisfied concience and a satisfied God.
I think this could radically change every part of my life if I let it. I'm realizing that SO much of what I do- from trying to eat healthy to going on a mission trip next year- is to satisfy my concience. But my concience is weak and satisfied with the bare minimum. So long as I'm doing SOMETHING, I feel okay about myself.
But the truth is, what it takes to trully live in a completely God-glorifying way is beyond anyone's ability to accomplish, which means we should never really stop pushing past what we feel is enough. Kind of like the way Paul lived, all the time.
I'm wondering how many people persue good things just looking for a life of ease of concience, and then are content only to work in the smallest of capasities once they get there. Not that there is no place for behind-the-scenes workers, and not that there are any jobs less important or God-glorifying than others. But being content just to exist without being ready to do whatever is most needed of you really shouldn't be an option.
This has been really convicting to me, and I certainly didn't come up with it myself so I thought maybe y'all could get some good out of it too.
Wow Emily, I honestly never really thought of this whole thing. I think you are so right, too. How do we make our consciences stronger? Is it maybe something the Holy Spirit works in us as we grow in Christ?
ReplyDeleteThis is kind of inline with the whole thing where we shouldn'ts be asking "How much can I get away with and still be obeying God?" But we should be running the other way and be doing things as close to God's law as possible because we want to please Him. Not be constantly pushing at the limits. Idk. Those just seem to go together to me. Maybe that's just me...
No, no- it's not just you, I think that's exactly what I'm trying to say. I knew I couldn't have come up with the idea on my own. :-)
ReplyDeletethis all seems very true, Emily. I can definitely see where you're coming from.
ReplyDeleteI catch myself doing that kind of thing a lot, and it makes me wonder how much God is okay with us screwing up "on purpose" since we've already accepted that we ourselves aren't perfect. We let ourselves get away with more sometimes because we know we're not perfect..
But if we never really even TRY to be like Jesus, thinking we could never be completely like him, that doesn't give us the right necessarily to let ourselves become lazy about it, right?
On the opposite extreme, is it right to beat ourselves up every time we slip up a little? God forgives us whenever we ask for it, so should we forgive ourselves as well?
I don't know if we should think of it as forgiving ourselves, but we should deff. accept God's forgivness and move on with the utmost intention of never doing that sin again. It's unproductive to wallow in our sins and also unglorifying to God- but yeah, I agree. There's always a ballance. Good point!
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