Coming to Our Senses

I want to love holiness.  I want to hate sin. I want to be a faithful lover. I want to be a much loved son. I want to be a Barnabas. I found myself praying this morning for God to give me a hatred for sin. I don’t think I hate or avoid it because I assume it’s not powerful. Well, on one hand, it’s not powerful in as much as Jesus destroyed it. Yet it’s powerful because it has the effect of destroying my life, my relationships, etc. Sin has power, but how do I live in Christ to where sin has no power? How do I have a hatred for sin and at the same time know that Jesus is not afraid of sin. Jesus not being afraid of something is not the same as Jesus liking, condoning or allowing something. The verse that came to me this morning was Luke 15:17, “When he came to his senses....” I feel the need to ask God to awaken my senses. The principle is that it takes God to love God. Any love I have for God is because he first loved me and put love in me for God. The same must be true with my senses. Any desire to come to my senses is indeed the first step to coming to my senses. There is dullness of hearing and dullness of speech and dullness of heart, but the first hint of the dawning of an awakening is knowing that awakening and coming to one’s senses does not happen because one says, “I need to come to my senses”, but it happens because initiated is an awareness in you that provided the thought, from the spirit man to the mind, “You need to come to your senses.” Any ability to recognize that where I am is not where I want to be or where I am supposed to be first began in God. He brought that to my attention. Before I can ask for change I need to know that change is possible and that I want to change. Coming to my senses is about more than just awareness that I don’t like my environment, but it’s first an awareness that God has touched me and as a result, I don’t like my environment. Coming to my senses is evidence that my senses have been touched by God. So my desire to come to my senses is evidence that God is involved in my life. I do not wait for awakening to praise God, I praise God because my awareness that I need an awakening proves that God is already at work in me. He has invited me in, but that is not enough. I need to say yes, and in so doing, I enter into the place of the finished work of God. The young man came to his senses, but how do we know that? He changed his way of thinking and he changed his choices. His behavior tells us that something has changed. That’s what I want. I want this cycle to have it’s full work in me. How do I know that I have come to my senses? First, I desire to come to my senses and secondly I change the way I think and the way I live. If having a better a thought were easy we would all do it, but a better thought implies the thought I have is insufficient or less than. So how do I have a better thought? Ask someone who has a better way of thinking what the thoughts of their mind and heart are? That would be supremely God. It’s possible to think the thoughts of God because we are instructed to renew our minds and have the mind of Christ. I guess in all of this rambling what I am saying is that my desire to come to my senses is the first step to coming to my senses. What is the last step in this process? It is the fact that I get up and go in a new direction. I need the power of God to change me and to transform me. Will I be still long enough for that to happen? Will I surrender my heart to God and allow him to bring correction and change? I can say I am a glorious son or daughter and in one way it’s true. The prodigal son, was still a son, let’s not lose sight of that. But in his sonship, he wanted to live his own way. I am still a son, even though I choose to fellowship with pigs. The first step out of “porkville” is to come to my senses. It’s a realization that I was born for more and then discover that the Father has more, than my more. My more is to simply be a servant in his house, but his more is to restore me to sonship. Where are my senses dulled? I can only ask that question because God is at work in me. The mind of Christ in me is has made me aware enough that I must ask, “where are my senses dulled?” That is the first step to sharpening our senses and realizing there is more. There must be a connection between Luke 15:17-24 and Ephesians 3:16-20. Eph 3:20 speaks of more than we can ask or imagine. The young prodigal son could only ask for or imagine for servanthood, but God has more. Sonship is the more than we can ask or imagine. What is the more described in Ephesians 3? It’s growing in the 4 dimensional nature of the love of God that is beyond knowledge. The journey into the experiential knowledge of the love of God is not done in isolation, but with the saints. This is a family journey that we are making and when we grow and experience the love of God in a powerful way, we realize that God will do more than we can ever ask or imagine. It says to me that there is a realm of living that I can’t yet see or taste, but it is there for us to experience. Yep, the kingdom way of living is more than I can ask or imagine. The destination of that truth is not the point, the journey is the point. Discovering is more important than discovery because we learn and pick up things along the way. So, just know that if you desire things to be different, that is the working of God. Come to your senses. Have a better thought. Pursue the more God has for you. Be restored and live the brilliant life God has for you.