On the first day of training I found myself smack dab in the middle of it...people were going to tell their testimonies. Imagine that...I was far from ready to speak. I just wanted to sleep. And sleep I did, through people’s testimonies I dozed off a little but I managed to catch them all. I realized through listening to different testimonies that we are all on different obstacle courses that God celebrates daily and as He is making us into His image....
We are all walking our paths and running our individual races, but for such a time as this the Lord has united many different people to run this part of our race together for the glory of God. For this short part of the race we get to run together and even though we are all in different levels in our race...here we converge and run as a team and if we stumble, we remember that in this part of the obstacle course, we have people to help us up the hill, or mountain. If one of us is sick, the others will carry the sick one to the roof and let him down to Jesus to be healed. We never walk alone. We are family. And as iron sharpens iron, we sharpen each other and we help each other through.
But through it we also must remember that we are still running the individual races with Jesus and He makes us more like Him. This reminds me of that song by Hillsong called “Be like you” Here are the lyrics.
VERSE
Humble King
Holy One
Friend of sinners
God's own Son
God in flesh
Among men
You walked my road
You understand
Servant King
Friend to me
You saved my soul
Washed my feet
Here I'll bow
Give all to You
Lord I want
To be like You
CHORUS
All I want
All I need
More of You
Less of me
Take this life
Lord it's Yours
Have my heart
Have it all
VERSE
I will walk
In Your ways
Love Your word
Seek Your face
My reward
My sole pursuit
To know You more
To be like You
BRIDGE
Jesus Jesus
All I want is to be like You
I often sing this song and repeat “ Jesus Jesus All I want is to be like you” but I never realized how hard it would be to lay myself down and kill the “Old man” and let Christ live in me. It has been difficult but just like getting here was not easy, being here has not been easy either. As He makes me like Him, Jesus has been working on me, showing me His perspective of sin, and forgiveness, and surrender, and openness (too many ands). We often love to sing such songs because they make us feel good about ourselves but we must remember that the process of being like Jesus requires us to die daily like Paul says. To watch as the Lord, through the teachings and exercises slowly kills the flesh and helps us to realize that it is by grace we are saved and grace is the new life within us.
I realize now that all of us are at some point during this training limping and healing. Some lessons are harder than others but what I love the most is how we as believers can stand before each other without fear of judgement and share the things that have been setting us off the path and the obstacles we have faced and through every process point each other to Jesus. Is is easy? No...far from it. But is it worth it? Yes...all the way.