This week I had one of the best laughs I’ve had in a long time. It was the kind of stomach-aching, down to your core laughs that doesn’t happen often in life. When it does, you want to hold on to that feeling as long as possible. It goes so deep that it hurts a little bit, but it brings you such joy that you can’t help but be reminded that you are yet alive. It reveals the kind of joy that God wants us to have continually, but with everything that is going on in our world, sometimes we forget this. We lose sight of the reality that these wonderful feelings are deep inside, resting at our cores. Because of what Christ accomplished for us, God’s love and all His other goodies are anchored within. When a person has a moment of deep joy like I did, we need to remember the internal path to this place, because God wants us to experience the depth of His love, goodness, and joy with every breath we take.
Our Heavenly Father wants us to have the absolute best in life! He desires us to have quality relationships, good health, a good job and prosperity; and should you desire it, He wants you to have a loving, faithful, and Godly spouse as well. An important truth to embracing and living a successful Christian life in this way is understanding that Jesus Christ has made it possible for us to do so. He declares in John 10:10(NKJV), “ The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” Our precious Lord and Savior tells us in this verse why he left the Father’s throne to come to earth. He came here to give us what we couldn’t achieve on our own, which is a rich and satisfying life.
Jesus Christ also tells us in Luke 12:48 that to whom much is given, much is required. This means that greater blessings require greater responsibility. We must have the mental, emotional, and most importantly, spiritual maturity to handle the blessings we desire. We can see this Godly principle in every aspect of life. In Genesis 1:26, God tells us that we are made in His image, and He also tells us that He’s given us dominion and authority to exercise in the earth. Adam and Eve lost this dominion and authority, but God restored it through the sacrificial sin offering of Jesus Christ. 2Timothy 2:5(NLT) very clearly states, “And athletes cannot win the prize unless they follow the rules.” We have victory through our Lord and Savior, and this victory requires us to follow God’s Word so we can walk and live as though we know we’ve won the prize. This is what faith is all about.
We have a responsibility to live holy. 2Timothy 1:9(NLT) tells us, “For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan from before the beginning of time—to show us his grace through Christ Jesus.”
Heavenly Father calls upon us to rise up to the level of the prize we’ve received through His precious Son. Most of us have made many mistakes and some of them have been doozies. Because of our missteps and mishaps of the past, we may think we can’t live up to God’s expectations, but we absolutely can, because He’s empowered us through Christ to do it.
The Holy Spirit abides deep within, at the very core of who we are. Our tendency is to try and cover up our errors and sin or ignore them, but if we do this, we disconnect from the deepest part of us, the place where we need the most help. Spiritual maturity requires us to be transparent before God, to let the Spirit minister to our cores. There, he will do the work of transforming us as we confront things that need to be repented from and released.
Many of God’s sons and daughters want quality people to build a life with. Some of us have been praying about this a very long time, but we’re not praying equally as much to be strengthened in Christ at our cores. We’re not recognizing that our desire for a quality person must be met with our commitment to be one ourselves. And if we are committed to be a quality person, the desire to please God and to measure up to the full stature of Christ must be our greatest ambition and motivation. We are all works in progress, and we must come to the realization that God is preparing us spiritually, so that we can maintain the blessings we seek. We must love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. When our love for Him is firmly anchored at our cores, the blessing of deep and abiding joy will consume our existences and make us a magnet for God’s manifold treasures. ▪
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“At Your Core”, written by Kim Times, edited by Reverend Fran Mack for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2022. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.