Week 5 is in the books and we’re halfway done with our
journey through The Hole in our Holiness. We all seemed to have learned similar things
during our time in the Word over the past week.
It’s kind of wicked sweet sometimes how God works like that. One of the biggest focuses of the week was
how to show grace in our lives to the people we come in contact with. This could involve such things as cutting
unholy talk out of our lives or how we interact with people in our
workplace. It’s pretty much easier to be
negative than positive sometimes but we need to take steps in grow in that
fashion. As Paul writes to the
Ephesians, we need to live as children of light through any means necessary. Woot!
Well, now that we’ve discussed our personal learnings for the week in
full, it’s time to move on to the libro.
The biggest topic of the week revolved around ways in which
our pursuit of personal holiness can be slowed.
The two most prevalent issues discussed were through societal
expectations and by time-management.
Ironically, I seem to have issues with both of these in my life and was
all about learning that others struggled with the same things. Not because it made me look better (How’s
that possible?), but because it was an
encouragement, as well as an accountability tool. It’s hard to live with a desire to
please. Those feelings can at times
stand in the way of our pursuit of God because we’ll create those idols in our
lives that we need to please. In spite
of our desire to please, we also need to make certain that’s not standing in
the way of God in our lives.
Time-management can also be an issue.
It’s been said before that wherever/whatever we do with our time will
show where exactly our heart lies. For
example, I love to play video games.
That’s how I wind down at night and get ready for bed and
everything. I especially love questing
to get all the trophies that I can. At
times, I can find myself a little obsessed and focused on just obtaining “1
more trophy.” Not a good thing. If I applied those fundamentals to my walk,
how much would I grow?
From there, we began to discuss if our sin stands in the way
of our attempts to be holy. The answer
is that it definitely can if we allow it to.
Make sense? No? That’s what I thought. We can’t focus on our sin to the point where we
have no desire to try to be holy anymore.
We also discussed the gradiation of sin.
That is, are some sins worse than others or not? Regardless of how our sins affect us in our
life, we can’t find ourselves getting discouraged by those sin issues. Just as a parent wouldn’t get disappointed in
their child cleaning the garage wrong and putting things back in the wrong
place, God’s not going to be disappointed by our attempts to be holy. He may not be fully satisfied, but he’ll be
pleased by our attempts. It’s like
taking a trip to Yogurtini and finding that we only have enough money in our
pocket for a small. We begrudgingly get
our small despite it not being fully what we wanted. Even though we may not be 100% satisfied, we’re
still going to be pleased that we got some fantastic yogurt (ideally with a
cherry on top). Look no further than
David to see someone who screwed up epically, but God still loved Him and was
pleased by Him.
Some additional thoughts to remember for this week are as
follows:
- · It’s easier to convict people than to encourage and that’s not good or Godly.
- · There’s a balance in our attempts to be Holy (a happy medium). While we’re still worldly, we can make strides to please God with our lives.
- · Pay attention to how we are being faithful to God.
- · Don’t let your faults get you down. Find comfort in the ways that you are honoring God with your life.
- · Chase disclosed that he apparently has a cube for a heart.
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