Pursuing Holiness

I've had a lot of conversations recently with people about what it means to live radically. We desperately want to live radically for Jesus, but how do you live radically in a normal life? How do I, as a 21 year old college student, wake up everyday, go to class, go to work, spend time with my friends, and be radical for Jesus?

Well, I think the answer to the question lies in understanding what it means to pursue holiness.

God commands us to "be holy, because I am holy" (1 Peter 1:16). Just as God is holy and set apart, we are also called to be set apart because we are His people. God calls us a holy nation, a chosen generation.

We are called to be different. And not just a little different.

Radically different.

But being radically different doesn't just start with the big things like moving to another country to share the Gospel. Some of the most radical ways that we can pursue holiness are in the small choices that we make everyday, the ones that we think aren't a big deal. 

Examples of holiness and living radically are found in the details of our everyday lives.

Pursuing holiness means talking differently than the rest of the world. It means letting no unwholesome talk come out of our mouths except for what is useful for building up others (Ephesians 4:29). Why? Because we are setting ourselves apart.

Pursuing holiness looks like dressing differently than the rest of the world. It means dressing modestly and not continuously pushing the limits. Why? Because it sets us apart. (Do we, women of God, truly dress more modestly than the rest of the world? Could you pick us out as different, say, on a beach? Or do we only measure the length of our shorts and pull out our one pieces and tankinis in time for church camp?)

Pursuing holiness also means being sensitive to what we are watching and listening to and reading. Why? Because we truly want whatever we think about to be lovely and praiseworthy (Phil 4:8) so that we can know Jesus more.

It's all of those things and so much more.

Pursuing holiness and having a radical faith isn't just taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth or facing persecution in the name of Jesus (though that is certainly radical!) But having a radical faith is looking radically different from the rest of the world in the name of Jesus by striving everyday, in our everyday choices, to become more like Jesus. This is what pursuing holiness is- it's hating the sin in our lives that keeps us from knowing Jesus more and pursuing Him! Pursuing holiness is how we pursue Jesus!

But somewhere along the way, we've forgotten about this. Rarely anymore does our generation talk about pursuing holiness. We almost seem to fear pursuing holiness. We don't want to seem "holier than thou" in our attitude. We don't want to offend people, especially other Christians. It seems as though we've pushed the pursuit of holiness to the side because of a fear of legalism.

But pursuing holiness isn't legalistic because our true pursuit of holiness reminds us daily how much we need grace. And thank the Lord we have the grace we desperately need to continue pursuing Jesus and pursuing holiness every time we fail. Because we will fail. A lot. But that's the Gospel.

And we share the Gospel with our actions when we are set apart from the world. When we are different people start asking questions. No one will believe that the Gospel has the power to change lives if your life looks the same as theirs. The Gospel is radical. And the Gospel in you makes you radical.

So don't buy into the lie that we have to fit into the world in order to share the Gospel with the world. The enemy loves that lie. We are aliens! We are ambassadors! We are called to love the people of this world but we aren't loving anyone if we aren't showing them a Gospel that is life changing. The Gospel is offensive. Living radically and pursuing holiness is offensive. And sometimes it will even offend other believers. But we cannot fear offending people with living out the Gospel in a radical and holy lifestyle or we will miss out on the abundant life Jesus has for us. Loving the world means taking a stand against sin, especially the sin in our own lives.

So what are you willing to risk to have a radical faith?

Let's take up our crosses and pursue holiness everyday so that we can know Jesus more and more and more and more. He is so worth it.

so tired of me

I am so tired of me.

Not in the I-hate-myself way but more in the I-am-so-tired-of-my-life-being-all-about-me way.

And no, I don't mean this in a super spiritual way. I just mean that I am genuinely tired of dealing with my own problems, my own hurts, and my own issues. They are stealing my joy and I am tired of giving them all of my time and attention.

See, it's a pretty common theme in our culture today to believe that college is all about you.

It's all about your time to find out who you are. Decide who you want to be. Focus on yourself. Be selfish. Make mistakes. And ultimately, do what you want.

Well, I don't know about ya'll, but this isn't working out well for me. The more I focus on myself, the more I realize what a mess I am. The more that I try to put my life together exactly how I want it, the more frustrated I become.

And so I wake up everyday and live my life as if it revolves around me. I talk about me. I think about me. Yep, it's pretty much all about me.

And here is the worst part: We make Jesus about us too.

I might as well be asking Jesus what he can do for me. Jesus can you put my life together perfectly? If I follow you then will you tell me exactly what to do in order to have the best life? 

Don't get me wrong here! Yes, of course we should bring all of our problems to the feet of Jesus, but not so that he can fix them- so that he can give us peace! And yes, of course we should follow Jesus and seek His will but not so that he will lead us down the path of happiness with the least amount of hurt and trials. Sometimes following Jesus leads to death. And all of the time the path of Jesus will involve persecution. ("In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus WILL be persecuted" 2Timothy 3:12)

So think about this next time you ask God to reveal his will and perfect plan for your life- ask him because you know it will be the most abundant and fulfilling life and not the easiest, not the tame Christian lifestyle that goes to church on Sunday and prays for God to fix their problems. "Then Jesus said to His disciples, 'If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.'"Matthew 16:24-25 Why in the world have we not been taking Jesus's words seriously about this?

Because here is something shocking to our culture- the Gospel is not about you. It is about Jesus. And Jesus did not die on that cross and rise from the grave so that he could fix my earthly problems! He defeated death so that he could free me from my sin!

So what's the cure? How do I stop acting like everything is about me? How do I stop acting like the Gospel is about me?

Share it.

Share the Gospel with your words. Share it with your actions. DO SOMETHING for someone else in the name of Jesus Christ.

Because let me tell you this, when you stop paying attention to your self and your own problems and you start focusing on how God wants to use you to impact others with the power of the Gospel, then your issues will seem insignificant.

Something I am learning is this: Life is better when it's not about me. It's so much more fun and exciting and kind of actually really scary to give your entire life to Jesus and to sharing his Gospel of love and grace with others. Because guess what? It isn't about you anymore. That means that you don't have to worry about all of your problems anymore. Let me say that again, you can stop worrying about figuring out all of your problems and issues and struggles! What a relief! You are FREE! Free to live life abundantly by abandoning your worldly cares and sharing freedom with others! How beautiful.

It is scary because it isn't going to be easy but you get to live for something more than just yourself! It doesn't have to be all about you anymore! Life would be so disappointing if it was only about us and seeking our own happiness. But good news! There is something more to live and to die for!
And YOU get to be a part of it!

So when you realize that you are starting to get sad and anxious and frustrated- stop paying so much attention to yourself. There is a grander picture being painted- one of victory and freedom and grace and love and redemption. And that, my friend, is exciting.

So, if you're tired of yourself- of your life being all about you- then ask Jesus to open your eyes to see beyond yourself. But here's a warning- life might get a little crazy.

Grace Again

Few times in my life have I heard the voice of the Lord as clearly as I did sitting in the middle of class yesterday.

It came out of the middle of a muddle of thoughts that have been running through my heart lately. Such sweet grace and relief that I literally almost starting crying in class. Which was a funny sight, let me assure you...

Taylor, daughter, when I called you I knew you would make mistakes. 

My heart literally sang to be reminded of such a simple truth

When Jesus called you to be on mission with Him, he knew you would make mistakes. And not just little mistakes, but big mistakes.

And yet He still called you.

So take a deep breath. It's okay! Just because you surprised yourself, does not mean that you surprised God. You have not ruined it all.

Only in foolishness would I allow myself to believe that I must be perfect to serve Jesus. Or that God expects me to be perfect in order to serve Him well. Hello! That is why GRACE exists!

God doesn't say to me- Taylor, if you are good enough I will use you. And if you make a mistake I will stop using you. Praise God that He does not say that to us!

Don't get me wrong. God calls us to be holy and to diligently pursue holiness. But the closer we get to holiness, the more deeply we will feel the disgust of our sin. And we cannot allow it to paralyze us! That is why we have to learn how to accept grace.

When I choose to remain frustrated by my own failures and mistakes rather than accepting the grace that Jesus is extending to me, I am not practicing humility. Instead I'm just letting my pride get in the way. 

So humble yourself before the Lord- acknowledge your need for grace and accept it with joy! And He will lift you up- up out of that pit of failure and confusion that your mistakes have tossed you in.

"Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up." James 4:10 

2014

I've been trying to come up with a New Years resolution all day long and it hasn't been going well. 

My list so far goes like this...

In 2014:

I will learn new things about Jesus. 

I will drink excessive amounts of coffee while sharing life with sweet friends, rushing to 8a.m.s, studying for exams, and reading the Word from my precious Savior.

I will stop hoping in my own plans and start hoping in the Lord and His promises to me

I will tell extremely cheesy jokes and laugh at them myself.

I will learn to understand grace more deeply by giving it and acknowledging my need to accept it.

I'll take more pictures and cherish precious moments with the people that I love.

I will memorize more scripture

I'll drink too much diet coke and say yes to way too many McFlurry runs with my friends

I will read more books and seek more wisdom

I will pray longer and harder

And I will dream B I G G E R

See- it's a great list. And if I do all of those things, I know I'll be a better person for it (except for maybe the McFlurry part).

But what I really want in 2014 is to see God move in my life in a way that I never have before.

So what kind of resolutions do you make to meet a goal like that? Well honestly, I don't think it will be the kind that starts with "I will..." because if I truly desire for God to move in my life this year, then I believe that it will all boil down to one thing: in 2014, it won't be about me.

It wont be about me eating healthier, learning more, reading more, or going more places- it won't be about me at all.

2014 must be about all that GOD WILL DO and not all that I will do. 

Don't get me wrong, I am still going to try to do all of the things on that list. But my focus cannot be on myself but rather on glorifying Jesus through the things that I do.

So this year, if we want to see God move in incredible ways among us, let's stop resolving to do things to make ourselves better and start focusing on glorifying God for all that He will do.

He must become greater; I must become less. John 3:30

2014 is going to be a great adventure.

be broken

Sometimes the truth and the depth of the Gospel hits you again like a brick. 

This happened to me yesterday as I read the beginning of Jeremiah. I'll be honest- I began my time in the Word pretty begrudgingly. I was feeling empty and I didn't think there was anything God could say to soften my heart that day...

I'm so glad that I was wrong. 

I don't have much to say about it, but I wanted to share these words from God today because maybe someone is feeling the same way that I was yesterday. 

I love how it works. First, I read Jeremiah 2. 

Jeremiah 2:

"But my people have exchanged their glorious God 
   for worthless idols...

They have forsaken me,
    the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
    broken cisterns that cannot hold water...

You said, It’s no use!
    I love foreign gods,
    and I must go after them...

My people have forgotten me,
    days without number.
³³ How skilled you are at pursuing love!...

Yet in spite of all this
³⁵     you say, I am innocent;
    he is not angry with me.


Yep that's me. 

Trying to hold my own water in a broken cistern instead of going to the spring of life.

I pursue love elsewhere. 

I have exchanged the glory of God for worthless idols. 

But then- in the very next chapter I hear the grace that I do not deserve. Read this! 

Jeremiah 3:

Return, faithless Israel, declares the Lord,
    I will frown on you no longer,
for I am faithful,’ declares the Lord,
    I will not be angry forever...

Return, faithless people, declares the Lord, for I am your husband. I will choose you...

How gladly would I treat you like my children
    and give you a pleasant land,
    the most beautiful inheritance of any nation.’
I thought you would call me ‘Father’
    and not turn away from following me.

That is GRACE people. And it's overwhelming! 

I do not deserve His love and faithfulness. But He gives it to me anyway. 

He asks me to call Him F A T H E R . 

He CHOOSES me despite my faithlessness.

So cherish His grace today. Let it sweetly break your heart.

you're not good enough

The enemy has gotten a lie stuck in my head

A lie that seems to be chasing me around every corner lately

A lie that steals my joy and cripples my ability to pursue my dreams

A lie that most of the time I'm not quite sure is a lie

"I'm not good enough"

It repeats itself in my head regularly. Every mistake. Every choice. Everyday.

And I fight and I fight and I fight to prove Satan wrong.

"I am good enough!" I tell myself.

I work harder. I try harder. I struggle longer.

And yet.. I continue to  F A I L . 

But I've finally realized that it isn't a lie

I'm not good enough. What a relief. I'm not good enough

The culture keeps telling me to believe in myself. Be confident in who I am. And never let anyone tell me that I'm not good enough 

But our culture is wrong again. Is anyone really surprised by that? 

I'm not good enough 

I need Jesus. 

I need G R A C E .

Praise God for He is good enough. And He loves me regardless of my mess

But when I tell myself over and over again that I am good enough, I ignore my need for grace and my need for Jesus

I keep finding my worth in how much I love Jesus and not how much He loves me

I keep finding my value in how much I do for the Kingdom instead of how much Jesus did for me

And finally here I am. Learning that God will not let us ignore grace for long. 

Eventually we will all realize how desperately we need it. 

My worth cannot come from how good I am. It cannot come from how much I love Jesus, how much spiritual fruit I bear,or how many things in my life I get right according to what we learn in church. 

And I cannot keep trying to earn the favor of God or man by being good enough. 

Because it's not going to happen and because God has already given me good things and will continue to work for my good regardless of how good I am. 

Because grace isn't just about not getting what we deserve, it's about getting what we don't deserve. 

If I was good enough, I would deserve it. 

But I'm not and I don't and that is what makes it grace. 

So find freedom in admitting that you aren't good enough and you never will be.  

And then find joy in the good news:

Because you aren't good enough, you don't deserve anything but God loves you anyway. He wants to save you from the sin that makes you feel empty and He wants to have a relationship with you and  bless you with good things. 

That's grace people.

So glorify God because He deserves all of the praise. 

The Still Small Voice

I don't always do the things that God asks me to do. And I think that can probably be said for just about every Christian ever...ever.

And sometimes I just ignore what I know am supposed to do but I also think a lot of the time, it's because I talk talk myself out of it with a very crafty question from Satan that he's been asking since the Garden of Eden: "Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?"(Gen 3:1)

Did God really say that? 

Did He really?

Sometimes we hear the voice of the Holy Spirit asking us to do something we may think seems crazy or scary or even just uncomfortable. And instead of doing it- we ask the question "Did God really say that?" 

So many of us struggle with what God wants us to do. It's what I've been struggling with since I graduated high school. What does He want me to do after school? Where does He want to use me? What is the answer in this situation? Sometimes I think that if He would just write it out for me, I'd happily do it. I just want to know!

But that's just not how we hear from Him usually and instead when we hear the still small voice of the Holy Spirit, we don't know how to discern it from our own voice or the voices of the enemy and it keeps us from doing the greatest things that God's calling us to. 

So what's the solution?

I've been begging God for an answer and I feel like I've finally gotten one. It's surprisingly simple. 

Knowing His voice. 

Easier said than done, right?

But we cannot do all of the specific things that the Lord is calling us to until we learn to discern His voice. 

"His sheep follow him because they know his voice." John 10:4

We have to be in tune with the voice of the Holy Spirit. Plain and simple. 

So how?

Well, that question is a little more complicated but this I know to be true: 

When you seek the Lord, you find Him. (Matt. 7:7)

Seek His voice so often that you know it.

Stop asking God to write it in the skies for you and instead learn to listen. 

Seek His voice diligently.

Then see the crazy adventures He will take you on when are obedient to His voice.