J. Mitchell Lane

This weekend I was able to retreat up to Frazier Park with several friends from Grace Community Church and just spend some time outside. It’s amazing what some time away like that can do for your mental state and motivation. You come back home feeling refreshed and ready to take on the next weeks or months ahead. We also forget how much spending time enjoying God’s creation can refocus us on Him.

One of the songs during worship tonight was “Power of the Cross”, and the lyrics below really hit me hard.

“Now the daylight flees. Now the ground beneath quakes as its Maker bows His head.”

After spending time out in creation and coming back, the reality struck me again: The God who created ALL of it, the God who created EVERYTHING sacrificed Himself so that I could have a relationship with Him. That is just an amazing thought. In things like that, in little realizations like that, I get a tiny glimpse of what we really have in Christ, and how little we truly deserve. I cannot wait to realize completely how great His Glory is!

Who am I to use my life for any purpose but to serve Him?

“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing out eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1-2

I was reading this tonight, and I was reminded about how easy it is for me to get caught up in the things that are preventing me from becoming more like Christ. Isn’t it easy for each of us to get stuck in our daily routines and forget about the race that God has set before us to run? Just about every day I forget about what I have in Christ, and I take the time that I have in that day that focus on how I’m not getting what I want. Or… if I’m not focusing on how I’m not getting what I want, I’m focusing on trying to find a way to elevate myself above God. Somehow what I want or need is more important than God’s plan in my mind, and in the rare moments that I realize I’m treating myself as greater than God, I make myself sick.

Reading this tonight reminded me that I need to keep myself focused on the race that God has set before me. I need to keep a fact solid in my mind: God is more important than I am. Christ is the reason I am here, and any trials or temptations I am going through, I am going through because it is to His glory. Every single day I forget that simple fact. How would we all live if we were constantly focused on that?

I am one selfish human being.

I thought this snippet from Ronald Reagan on Socialized Medicine was very interesting. He explains the potential paths it could cause us to go down very well.