Unshackled Moments ~ October 7 ~ Why Are We Here?

God, I offer myself to You - To build with me and to do with me as You will. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Your will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Your Power, Your Love, and Your Way of life. May I do Your will always! 

- The Third Step Prayer

There are times when we don't know exactly what the will of God for our life is. Should I do this or that? I have heard it said that even when we don't know what the will of God for us is, we know what it is not. This is usually spoken in regards to drinking and or drugging, as in I may not know what God wants me to do today, but I know it isn't to relapse. There is definite truth in this concept.

It was never the will of God for the children of Israel to return to their bondage in Egypt, and it is not ever the will of God for us to return to the bondage and captivity He has freed us from either. And sometimes eliminating the wrong possibility can help reveal the right choice to make. But in addition to knowing some things that are never the will of God, we can know something that is always within God's will. It is always within the will of God for my life and for your life to live like, act like, display the qualities of Jesus.

In the Third Step Prayer, we ask God to relieve us of the bondage of self, and it's important to remember that the idea is that we are praying this prayer as a part of ultimate, complete and unconditional surrender of our will and our lives to the care of God. Lord, I am going to choose Your will and desire and wants and pleasure and plans and goals needs over my own, even to the point of death. That's what it means, to surrender and give Him our lives, all of them, the good and the bad, to do with as He wills. Self must be sacrificed, placed on the altar and our desires and expectations must be set aside for what God  wills.

No one has ever exemplified this kind of self mortification better than Jesus. He left His glory to put on flesh and expose Himself personally to our temptations and weaknesses, spoke only what He heard the Father say and what the Father wanted Him to say, did only what He was told to do, set aside His own comfort and desire and, for the joy of pleasing God and restoring our ability to have relationship with our Creature, endured the cross. We may not know exactly what to do, but anytime we can choose to do something that will look like a good impersonation of Jesus, that would be good. There is nothing we could ever do that would fall within the category of something that would be in the nature of Christ that would ever fall outside of the will of God.

We ask to be relieved of the bondage of self and given victory in order to display God's glory. That is our purpose. Why am I here? I am here to display the glory of God. You are too. That's why when we are living for self we are so miserable, because our life can not fulfill its purpose. We are created to have relationship with the One who created us and to uniquely reflect an aspect of who He is, His glory (otherwise known as His power, love and way of life). As we surrender to Him and give Him all of us, we allow our lives to be guided and directed by the Spirit to such an extent that when people are around us they are exposed to Jesus. You may look like you and sound like you, but there is something in every movement, facial expression, action and reaction that reminds people around you, even if only subconsciously, of Jesus. That is the promised land where life is worth living and full of peace and joy that no situation can shake.



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