The Whole Outfit ...

I know I’m fortunate that God has given me a really deep love for his Word. I’m so blessed in that. I love it. A lot of the time, I can’t get enough.

But, it comes down like a double-edged sword sometimes, because I feel it so much more severely when I don’t desire the Word.

And I was really struggling these past few weeks, when circumstances were telling me I needed to be in the Word most. But I just couldn’t sit down.

Thankfully, normally it just takes one good soaking in the Word to get me up and running again.

My friend Paul sent me this amazing devotional and I’m just lapping up the stuff in there.

I was able to settle in with C.S. Lewis, who took me back to my understanding of the old vs. new self. He said that God isn’t a God of half measures; that he wants nothing short of the absolute commitment. And that doesn’t mean starting from my natural man and letting grace take me from there. No, God has a different starting point.

“Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead.”

So that was a good reminder for me. That I don’t just go as far as I can by myself, then let God take it from there. It starts from ground zero, it starts at grace, on a foundation of grace—that’s the only way I can grow in the new man.

And you know what’s best? It’s not just any new man.

“In fact, I will give you Myself; my own shall become yours!”