Day 10: More!

I was up late last night reading, and this line stood out from all the rest in a way that I knew I needed to pay attention.

“As we spend time with God not only do we become more like him, but our capacity for him increases.”

I immediately felt God drawing me to increase my capacity for him, by gently letting me know that my desire for him is far too often cast off to the fringes of a busy life.

It happened again in the midst of my morning commute, everything seemed to fade away as the chorus playing in my car echoed through me “there’s so much more I can give.”

I know there is, God… I know. With these things rolling around on the inside of me, today’s devotional seemed so fitting, so like God. He never draws us without showing us the way we should come.

When we turn our lives over to God we are made holy, not because of our actions or motives, but because of our identification with Jesus. This happens in an instant. Sort of like the day I got married, one second I was single, the next married. Nothing about me really changed. This act of getting married didn’t make me a good husband, any more than becoming a Christian means I talk and act like Jesus. Both are a process, and you should expect both to take effort.

Living together these 12 years have progressively brought my wife and I closer together, made us more like each other. It’s a natural result of living and sharing so much together. Our being married happened in an instant, but our becoming “one” takes a lifetime.

This is the essence of today’s devotional from Pastor Mike, dwelling with the Lord makes all the difference. We are saved in an instant, but the process to becoming “one” with him also takes a lifetime.

Fasting is one way we purpose to “dwell” with God, not just to get a little closer to him for a time, but to make us aware of our need to make it a lifestyle. Fasting shows that at least some of what we are spending our lives on is extraneous, and can be limited, or eliminated completely.

We come face to face with the fact that we can do better, that there is “so much more we can give.” As we give more of our time and energy to fasting, prayer, reading the Bible, or other activities that make room for him, we are becoming more like him and our capacity for him increases.

I pray Lord, that as we fast these 21 days, you would use this time as a launching pad to draw us into a lifetime of “dwelling” with you.

~Tadd