The God Slap

I’m sure you’ve felt it. It’s that moment of realization, long awaited epiphany, or deep pang of guilt or understanding. In these times, it’s almost as if God slaps you across the face, grabs hold of your chin, and directs your attention to something He wants you to see, understand, or realize. It feels abrupt, harsh, and sometimes brutal. Often times, it feels like you’ve been pushed down and immobilized. We serve a God of both gentle pursuit and fierce power. He both draws and shakes up. We clearly are a stubborn, willful people who are stuck thinking about ourselves, so sometimes it takes that sharp, “stop you in your tracks” moment to get our attention. Where are you?

Wasn’t it Jesus who said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:33-35)? It’s so easy to verbalize that we’ve decide to come after Jesus but never fully deny ourselves. Jesus was pretty straight forward about what He meant. If we are going to follow Christ, we MUST deny our very selves by entrusting Him to do well with every sinful tendency, dream, longing, and hope. While there are many side responsibilities that come with this position, our ONLY job is to glorify God. We cannot bring God glory when we are constantly thinking about our self, evaluating our emotions, resisting refinement, and living our own wills. We have no right to allow our sin to remain rooted in our lives when we have the blood of Christ to claim.

Romans 8:12-14 says, “Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”

How many times is it going to take God to hit us with His loving correction until we allow Him to bury our flesh and live by His spirit? Where are you now? Are you standing with pride, refusing to let the Maker of the universe speak into your life? Are you appearing to stand tall but cowering with fear on the inside? Are you standing casually not knowing where to go next? Have you just been “slapped” by God and does He have your attention about something? Are you immobilized on the ground, grasping for a way to get up? Do you carry the bruises and scuffs of one who is continually falling? Are you trying to fight God Himself and win? Where ever you are, stop. Let the Holy Spirit speak into your life, uproot your very self, and bury it. “For I know in whom I have believed and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.” 2 Timothy 1:12b. You can trust God with your self. If you want to live, I mean truly live, Jesus says you MUST let Him have your self.