"Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness..." - Matthew 6:33
"My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways." - Proverbs 23:26
"Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And His commandment: that we should believe on the name if His Son Jesus Christ and love one another..." - 1 John 3:22-23
God has been freeing me lately from things have bound me for my whole life. After months of wrestling with something and knowing it conceptually, it has finally taken root in my heart. Christianity is about seeking Jesus’ righteousness being confident in how righteous and holy He is and how His holiness extends to cover me. So often I would see sin in myself and pray for God to take it away. I wasn’t able to accept myself (don’t confuse this with being comfortable with sin in my life), instead of letting the Holy Spirit show the things He wanted to work on I was looking at the old man. Christianity is the pursuit of God and oneness with Him, not the pursuit of good character. Holiness is a byproduct of a vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ, how often have I believed the lie that if I practice more holiness God will move more? The mere idea that I could practice holiness on my own is ridiculous. The more I realize that I have no righteousness in me, that even the "good tendencies" I’ve always had are tainted apart from God the more I lean into Jesus. The confidence we have before the throne must be solely in the atoning blood and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We say that so often but until God showed me my heart and what I was relying on besides Him (and I know I’m done yet) that revelation could not take place.
The psalms say that those who look to Jesus are "radiant," in the Song of Solomon the Beloved says He is "overcome" when the bride looks at Him. The fact that Jesus is overcome when I fix my eyes on Him blows me away. When we come to simply gaze at Him He tells us we are beautiful. I believe this is the "one thing that is needed" mentioned at the end of Luke 10. Martha who hustling around the house, "serving alone" was angry with Martha and Jesus because she was doing everything in her power to serve Jesus and here Martha was sitting at Jesus’ feet. Jesus told Martha that Mary had "chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her." All aspects of self reliance must be broken, a contrite heart is a broken one. Natural strengths and weaknesses don’t matter with the Holy Spirit. I have to be reminded time and time again that God loves me because He is God not because of anything I have done. Our heart will condemn us if we rely at all on our own goodness, if I start along the line of thought that I am good, I buy into the lie that God loves because of who I am and then when I come to a part of me that isn’t good in my eyes I have a hard time believing that God loves me. God loves me because of who He is, Jesus loved me when I hated Him, when my sin put Him on the cross because He is that merciful. We must be wary in these last days that worldly theology doesn’t dilute our confidence in God. Our holy identity is only in Christ and not to be found anywhere in ourselves.