A Most Convicting Thought

There have been times in my life, very recently even, that i question the validity of my reasoning for serving God. I ask myself if it is worth the trouble, the hard work, and the sorrowful pain one often feels. It is at these times that I find the weakest link in the chain that symbolizes my faith in God.

What is my reasoning you may ask. I submit that my reasoning at these times comes from the weakness that is found in my human flesh. I feel that having these thoughts is not in and of itself a sin, but the sin comes when I allow myself to submit to the will of these thoughts. Exactly what are these thoughts you ask? Well these thoughts all begin with me looking around me, instead of looking to Christ.

As I look at the world, I see my unsaved family and friends doing things that I think of as sin, things I would never consider doing. These observations make it easy to fall into a thought pattern that considers just how easy life outside of Christ would be, as long as you do not give any thought to what He thinks. These thoughts often get me into a spiritual battle with my flesh.

It is at times like these that God, my Refuge and Strength for now and evermore, reminds me of how He has worked miracles and wonder in the past. He reminds me of Job and the trials that he went through, of David and the enemies he had to overcome, and then of Christ and the burden of the entire world, that He took upon his own back, as He carried the cross up to Calvary. I am reminded and then I am ashamed. Ashamed that I have allowed the most infinitesimal trials I have faced to add so much appeal to a life of sin, that i know would in in total disaster. To know that it takes thinking of and everlasting, all-powerful, Creator God taking on the form of a man, and dying a most-brutal death on the cross, to remind me of just how easy of a life I have been blessed with, leaves me with a feeling of utmost guilt. Fortunately, this sin is also buried under the blood that my Redeemer shed on the cross