It’s one thing to say you have faith, but it’s quite another to live it – and road-test it. When Jesus asked the young man if he was willing to give away everything he had and follow Him, (Matt 19:16-19) the man became sad and walked away because he was too invested in the World to consider such an act. When Jesus said, ” Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it,” (Matt 7:13-14), He was referring again to the fact that too many people will cling to the World rather than truly seek God. Clinging to the material world literally blinds them.
However, if you persist, keep reading the Word and do your best to understand it (not just on your own terms, but in conjunction with the help of the Holy Spirit, as well as Biblical scholars and teachers who are well-grounded in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Bible in general) your entire world-view begins to change. Things that once seemed vitally important no longer hold their power over you.
If you keep praising God even through the worst that life can throw at you, you begin to perceive the Way, the Truth and the Life. In a way, Heaven is something that you seek and you find it by the act of truly seeking it. It is something that must be perceived in the heart as well as the mind.
Think of it as walking down a crowded city street, past a small door that you’ve never noticed even though you know you were right in front of it a million other times. Then one day, you finally see it. Then you wonder how you (and everyone else around you) could miss something so obvious. It’s like that. I’ve got a million reasons to want to sink back into depression and my other “old ways,” but I haven’t. I have no desire to. I can see the door now and it’s only a matter of time before it opens.
I think this is why Jesus wept on the rock at Gethsemane, among other things. This is something truly so simple that it’s mind-blowing when you realize just how many people love clinging to misery. I imagine that for God, it must be frustrating. He keeps pointing at the door, saying, “It’s right here!” But people don’t see it. People revel in their pain. They proudly wave their banners of perpetual victimhood every moment of every day, yet lament because they’re so miserable. Giving up everything you have means that you have let the World go, that it no longer keeps the hold on you that it once had. It means letting go of the misery instead of wallowing in it. People don’t like to hear that, but it’s true.
When you finally “get there,” or at least as close as humanly possible, you realize that you could lose everything you have and it doesn’t matter any more because you know something far greater awaits on the other side of that door. It’s just a matter of finally seeing it.
Jesus Christ is that door. Faith is the key, and you hang on to it no matter what.
Until later,
Jillian
2-16-18
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Featured image by Norvs Austria
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