Arrived?

As I look back over my life, I think the times I struggled most in my walk with Christ are the times that I thought I was doing "good enough."  While our relationship with God is not about what we do, what we do is certainly a reflection of our love for Christ. 

I think so often we get in a "rut" and forget that God has so much more to offer us if we are willing to accept it.  Most often it comes in the form of making us more like Him. 

I was talking with my wife the other day about why some people seem to never change with time even though they say they have a relationship with Christ.  As we were talking I came to realization that even I have been guilty at times of either not listening to what God is challenging me to change in my life or not paying attention to the fact that God is asking me to better myself in a certain way so that I can be more like him.

I think the church failed us in this area when it talk about being "sanctified."  So many have taught that being "sanctified" means you have "arrived," and can no longer sin.  I don't see it like that.  I see sanctification as our response to Christ's saving us from ourselves.  Sanctification is not an arrival but rather a journey of choosing to be more like Christ and striving to be more like Him each day.   As humans we can never attain the "destination" on our own.

The beauty in it all, is that what we often seem to struggle with, is a desire to be free.  We fear that if we become more like Christ we will lose our freedom.  What we don't realize is that those struggles are the chains that bind us from being free and that the freedom in Christ is so much more than what we can imagine.

I have to admit, I have struggles.  We all do.  Being willing to admit we make mistakes and that we do struggle is the first step in being free. Refusing to acknowledge we have a problem or something we need to work on in our lives is a trap satan sets for us so that he can once again attach a chain to our lives and keep us from really being free. 

I want to be free.  I want to experience what more God has for me.