Stuck in Our Ways

 

Will you allow God to do in your life what He really desires to do? This is the question all of us should be asking ourselves. Our Heavenly Father has given us free-will choice, and He will never overstep or withdraw this gift. He will not override our wills. Many of us are walking around feeling lost. We don’t know who we are or why we’re here, but we know that something is missing. However, we’re removing our own selves from the equation. God tells us in 2Corinthians 13:5(NLT) to “Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine.” This means we need to hold ourselves underneath the magnifying glass for scrutiny, because you, your faith, and Jesus Christ are the only components determining your level of fulfillment and happiness in life.

Many of our feelings of sadness, despair, and displacement are tied to a lack of spiritual growth in Christ. 1Thessalonians 5:23(NLT) says, “Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.” God created us in His image, and He is triune in His being. The image of the Godhead is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In like manner, He created us as three-part beings as well. We have a human spirit, human soul, and human body. All three are required to make us humans. Without any one of those parts, we’d be something else.

Within the person of Jesus Christ is everything that God designed human beings to be. Christ is our blueprint and following his example of love and light pumps us full of life. He tells us in John 14:6(NLT), “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” More of life is the goal for every living being, and Jesus Christ makes it clear under no uncertain terms that the way to keep our tanks full of power, authority, life and love is to follow him. He is the One who fills our cups to overflowing.

Our whole lives are lived through what is in our hearts and minds. God warns us in Proverbs 4:23(NLT), “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” To guard is to be watchful about what goes in and what comes out. Again, careful scrutiny on our parts is necessary. Some of us haven’t done this. We haven’t engaged the exercise of examining ourselves according to the standard of faith God expects, so we have not made the connection between our circumstances and our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We continue to do what we’ve always done, and this will lead us down paths that are unsatisfactory.

In effect, this is what it means to be stuck in our ways. Being stuck is moving nowhere fast. It’s the refusal to repent, renew, and reprioritize under the influence and directive of God’s Holy Spirit. Our Heavenly Father tells us in Ephesians 4:22-24(NIV), “22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” This is God’s process for our renewal, and we desperately need to be renewed.

God sent His Son, Jesus Christ to save us. We were lost in sin, doing whatever we felt like doing no matter what kind of harm it caused to ourselves, to others, and most importantly, to our relationship with God. We were self-sabotaging left and right. Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross and offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins. When he died, our old lives died with him. And when God raised him from the dead, we were raised with him! Colossians 2:12(NLT) declares, “For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.”

Some of us are stuck because we have boxed ourselves in by the way that we think and feel. We refuse to believe in the new life in Christ that God freely offers us, and we think our way of doing things is the way that works for us. It doesn’t. We don’t know what we don’t know, and this gap between our current mindset and the mindset of Christ is the void we feel in life. The breakthrough that we’re waiting on is the one we’re blocking through doubt and unbelief. We can change this, and we should.

John 16:13(NLT) tells us, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.” We cannot live free by believing a lie. Only the truth sets us free, and John 14:6 declares that Jesus Christ is the truth! Renewing our minds to God’s truth is a continual process. It keeps us flexible to His Will and poised for new possibilities. Don’t allow doubt and unbelief to keep you stuck in life. Open your heart in a greater way to the Lord Jesus Christ. Pray often! Invite him to occupy every space of your heart and give God permission to do in your life whatever He desires to do.■

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 

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. 

“Stuck in Our Ways”, written for Christian Encouragement and Inspiration© 2022. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.