War Room (2015)
To the people who say “God loves me exactly as I am, He wouldn’t change a thing about me!” You’re right about God loving you exactly as you are. He loves all of us exactly as we are. He loves even the furthest from Him, the most against Him, the God-hating anti-Christianity people are loved by Him, so of course you are.
He may love you as you are, and nothing will change that, but He doesn’t want us to stay as we are. We’re sinners, He never intended for us to be sinners, we did that to ourselves. We severed ourselves from God using the free will that He gave us. And despite loving us while we’re sinners, He wants us to be made new.
You can’t put true and real faith in God and not end up an entirely different person. Believing that you don’t need to change shows you worship and follow the idea of God, which is always cozy and comforting, but that’s not the real God, it actually borders on the line of idolatry.
When you put your faith in the real, raw, sometimes difficult to understand God, the things that you think define you now will be stripped away and you’ll be wrapped in all the things God calls you to be. The closer you get to Him, the more flawed you realize you are. The more you notice, the more you need to rely on Him, not yourself, to transform you and bring you closer. It’ll be messy, confusing, uncomfortable, and requires constant sacrifice, but it will be 100% worth it.
You just don’t follow God fully and not end up changed. That doesn’t happen. Come as you are, as broken and sinful as you are, and expect to be given a new identity. Be prepared to have to relearn yourself, but also be prepared to be able to love yourself and others and most importantly God in a way you can’t possibly imagine.
He tells me,
Heal, my daughter.
Heal from the scars that left you crying until your body sighed with exhaustion.
Heal from the demons that haunt you and the ones you couldn’t fight on your own.
Heal from the heartache, the confusion, the pain.
I have whispered life into your soul. I am all you need.
I am telling you to go.
I am singing and dancing over you with joy.
Heal, my daughter.
- a.k.
If you ask God to lead you, don’t be surprised when He leads you to make sacrifices, when He leads you to dark times, when He leads you to uncomfortable situations. It’s those things that make us want to cling closer to God.
When God is leading you, the pathway you’re traveling will invariably bring you closer to Him.
