Jesus is challenging. On the one hand, I love Jesus. He is my savior, redeemer, encourager, helper, and source of life. I aim to please Him with all aspects of my life and experience great disappointment when I feel like I haven’t.
On the other hand, I find it hard at times to follow Jesus. I wish there were times when he were more clear. Taken at face value and this side of heaven, some things he says don’t seem to add up. To top it off, sometimes I feel as if He is being crystal clear and I find I can’t possibly live up to His expectations.
Can you relate?
As a result, I find myself having to overcome hurdles to give him full entrance into all aspects of my life without hesitation and with full joy. I don’t like that. I want to correct that.
I would love for you to come on a journey with me called The Jesus Challenge. I am going to start at the beginning of the gospels and go deliberately through all of His life and ministry. I will be very open about my struggles (and breakthroughs) regarding His challenges for me and all people.
I hope for this to be a place of openness and honesty for you as well. I want you to be able to share your perspective, points of tension, and places of surrender with Jesus also. We’ll need each other through this challenge and I welcome your perspective. I will call on it often.
The bottom line is this; I want to share the apostle Paul’s perspective that he shares in Philippians 3:8 – “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” I long for that to be true in my life. If you do too, then join me.
Will you take the challenge?
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really proud of you, Todd…absolutely look forward to taking this journey with you.
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My life has taken on a dramatic change and it has become more and more obvious that all of the things that I have been doing were not working. It was like I had been building this house and putting my heart, mind and soul into it and I wanted it to be the best home that it could possibly be. However, that was not enough. It is crystal clear to me now that my foundation was not solid and anything built without God even if it was with the best of intentions will fail. Now, I am trying to go back in and rebuild my home on a solid foundation, Christ. I can honestly say as I write this that I have no idea what direction my life may take. Today, pretty much everyday, I constantly hear the dreaded question, “What are you doing?” In all honesty, I have no idea. I’m certain that everyone around me probably thinks that I’ve lost it for certain. But things have never been clearer. I finally feel as if I am starting to understand my life and understand a little bit about the direction that Christ wants me to take. I was so busy in the past trying to deal with the effects of the root of the problem that I never gave myself the chance or opportunity to deal with the real problem. I found myself taking the easy way out so much that I never gave myself the opportunity to live God’s way. I find myself undergoing a mental, physical, emotional and spiritual rejuvenation of the soul, one that was definitely needed and long overdue. And even though I may not have received the Father that I wanted, I definitely received the Father that I needed: my Heavenly Father. The next time that someone asks me what am I doing, I’m going to say, “I’m trying to do God’s will for my life.” So as I sit here and contemplate my future, I am experiencing that one emotion that I knew so little of in my childhood, peace. I am at peace knowing that even though I don’t have all of the answers, He does. God has planned a far bigger and better dream for my life than I ever could have or that I ever will. All I need to do is submit and trust that everything will be okay. What more could anyone ask for?
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