I feel like my head is a jumble of thoughts today...

It's been a whirlwind weekend filled with fun, laughter and reflection. Life is exciting, brimming with adventure...small and big, that I am free to pursue without fear. It's a great way to live, in freedom. Not only in the sense of personal rights and national security, but also in spiritual and personal freedom. Insecurities and fear can exist on so many different levels, keeping us from living the life that God intends...one where we are free to love, fail, confess, and forgive, constantly being transformed "from glory to glory" as we reflect the character of Christ to the world around us. 

It's my desire to live this kind of life where I am an image-bearer of Christ, reflecting his character and glory as I strive to know him more intimately and truthfully. It is a struggle, an impossibility to perfect in this life, but I am free to live in my brokenness, embracing the love, grace and forgiveness freely offered by my God. 

Romans 8 - The solution is life on God's terms (from the Message)

"The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death."

"Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them-living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end, attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life."

"But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells-even though you still experience all the limitations of sin-you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you, you are delivered from that dead life."

A verse that really struck me....Romans 8:15

"This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike 'What's next, Papa?' God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are."

And from Galatians 5...

"My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness.These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

So what does this life in the Spirit look like where we reflect Christ's glory? Galatians 5 continues...

"But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard - things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely"

Everyday, I fail to live this free life as I am entangled in my own selfishness, pride and will, but I will continue to strive deeper into understanding of life in Christ, in order to reflect his glory to the world around me.