Like Fire

I watched the movie Dante's Peak last night, in its entirety, on AMC. So I saw more commercials than I needed to see for the entire week. I muted a few of the commercial breaks, but ended up passively waiting through the rest of them to get back to the movie. Some observations:

We are told two things when it comes to our image/appearance/self-worth. Either A) we do not look good enough or are not good enough so we need a product or service to make us look and feel better, or B) don't let people determine your worth, you are amazing just the way you are. Both options are lazy misconstructions of how we are really supposed to handle ourselves. They've both got enough truth in them to make us want to go in their direction, but they are dangerously flawed as well.

There's something about love that makes it like fire. You cannot come into contact with real love without being changed. I don't have to tell you that for you to intuitively understand what I'm talking about. Love changes you.

Now, the beautiful thing about grace is that God does not require us to clean up our act before coming to him. He just wants us to come to him. And since most of us are screwed up in so many different ways, there aren't many people who end up coming to God with white robes on. We come to God as we are, but the love that we come into contact with changes us.

I too often shy away from the hard task of sanctification. I end up either relying too much on my own strength or thinking that it's just a needless attempt at doing something that's not really possible. But sanctification is not something we can choose to ignore, because in so doing we cheapen grace. Coming into contact with God's love changes us, every day, transforming us into people that are more Christlike.

It's why we keep getting back up when we fall down, because of the strength of the grace of God. His love compels us forward, and every time we make mistakes he calls us closer to himself.

You and I are called to be holy, to lay ourselves before the altar of the Lord. Sure, God is full of grace, but living with the mantra of "i'm not perfect" is just an immature way to live out a relationship with the living and active God. It comes down to this: do we really believe God is powerful enough in his love and grace to change us, to really transform those deepest parts of our lives where we do not let anyone else go? Are we willing to come completely before him and ask for his help? And are we really ready for the consequences of such a radical step of faith?