davidbowerkingwood

How Does who you are and What you are Doing fit in with your Dreams, Hopes, and Aspirations?

Living today exposes all of us to many pressures to conform to the wishes of others concerning our lives and how we live them; we are inundated with advertising that tells us how wonderful our lives would be if only we should do what we’re being told. Most of us learn very quickly the promises of amazing transformations are hollow and false and should we follow those instructions we are left without all of the vast improvements to our lives that were promised.

We are all products of a variety of influences which have helped shape us over the course of our lives. Some of the most influential factors were completely beyond our control; we had nothing to say about who our parents would be or the fact that we would be born into a fallen race whose members are born spiritually dead. It is helpful to reflect on the fact our parents and their parents and all previous generations of parents have been faced with this same dilemma.

Factors beyond our control would determine whether we were born male or female; the general configuration of our bodies was genetically determined by our DNA and we had no input into key physical properties that would influence the balance of our lives. We had no say in our general body types, hair color, bone structure and simply Making Peace with Who You are had to play the hand we were dealt by our parents.

As we grow up we begin to sort things out; we start to identify those things that really matter to us and start building a life that we think, and hope, will be our very best choice. We are under a tremendous amount of pressure during those early formative years, in addition to pressures from without we must deal with pressures within which can all too easily exert a disproportionate influence on our decision-making process.

Finding Help

The mere fact of living in a modern society means we are surrounded by the things of this world; we are constantly barraged by a world view which is totally opposite from the view described in the Bible. The world seeks to convince us of what is real and what is not and, in this process, can present us with choices that are ultimately very destructive.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of discovering and practicing a Biblical perspective on reality and life. I have written on these many times and stress the importance of a realistic worldview as the basis for all other decisions. I’ve written on this in “What is Reality”, “The Painted Veil That Hides Reality” and a seven part series that starts with “It’s All True, All of It! Part 1“.

To ignore the Bible is a sure invitation to failure as there is no other source where eternal truths are clearly presented! I wrote in “What is Reality;”

“All of us have heard the expression “get real” which usually means to deal with life as it really is and stop dreaming. That is good advice as reality is the ultimate judge of the value of all of our actions and decisions.”

If we are to make decisions of real value then it is critical we use the best information available and I promise you that information is only found in the Bible!

Lessons we Must Learn

The Bible is very clear as it pinpoints the situation each one of us faces; the fact of our spiritual death in Adam is a case in point; we are told that we died in Adam in the Garden of Eden and at the time of our physical birth we were spiritually dead. We are also told of the necessity of our new birth as we receive the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior; if we are not born again we can have no part in God’s kingdom.

Once we have been born again, by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we are eternally indwelt by the Holy Spirit as a down payment on the inheritance God has planned for all of his children. We then begin the journey of a lifetime as God continues to conform us to the image of his son, Jesus Christ.

We must learn, as Christians, we exist on two planes, a spiritual one and a temporal one. Spiritually we have been given the perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ, seated in Christ at the right hand of the Father, and are totally free of all condemnation; temporally we occupy a fallen, unredeemed body, and still have a sin nature within us which seeks to sabotage our lives as we endeavor to grow in our faith as children of God.

It has pleased God to leave us on this world with many responsibilities; we are not only children in God’s family and joint heirs with Christ, but soldiers in the Lord’s army, royal priests, and ambassadors for the Lord to a fallen world which is truly no longer our home. We are told that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

In this same context we are told: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.” It is important that we recognize and accept the reality of our situation; we’ll live out our entire mortal lives as soldiers fighting a spiritual battle on a spiritual battlefield. I have written on this in a three-part series, “To the Soldiers in the Spiritual War“.