Self-Cleaning Ovens

I was working at church today,  having been given the task of cleaning two ovens. One was a standard, get up to your elbows in grease type oven, and the other was self-cleaning. I set the self-cleaning timer, the oven door locked, and I went to work scrubbing the other one. To accomplish this task, I used two types of cleanser and scrubby pads, and even with all that,  some of the gunk was very difficult to remove. All the while, the other oven was getting hotter and hotter, doing it's thing.
As I scrubbed and scrubbed, it reminded me of two types of Christians. There are those, many of those, who are like someone cleaning a standard oven. These people are independent,  do-it-yourself-ers, who try again and again to clean up the gunky mess left in their spirits by a lifetime of sinful behavior.  They work and work, sweating and scrubbing, doing good deeds and trying so hard to make up for all the sins they've committed. The only difference is,  when you scrub an actual stove, the gunk comes off. When you try working your way to righteousness, you end up still grimy and unsatisfied, no better off than before you did all that work.
On the other hand,  you have the people who are more like someone cleaning a self-cleaning oven. These people close the door of their spirits,  and sit back comfortably while the Holy Spirit goes in and uses the Blood of Jesus to spotlessly scrub every last hint of sin and unrighteousness from their spirits. These people recognize the futility of all that independent scrubbing, knowing that the only way to truly become clean inside is to allow the Holy Spirit to do the work. The end result is a decidedly better-looking spirit, made wonderfully right in God's eyes! Maybe this is not that good an analogy, but that's what it looked like to me as I was scrubbing away at the oven. At any rate,  it reminded me that I must let the Holy Spirit do the cleaning in my spirit,  that my own work will never be enough.  God bless you!

Free To Be Me!

I gave my life to Christ in April of 2012, and slowly,  steadily He has been breaking bondages and destroying yokes off me.  Not long ago, He set me free from two particularly burdensome loads I have been carrying for a while. One was, trying to be the Holy Spirit to my husband.  You see,  ever since I gave my life to Christ,  I had been making my own life burdened and miserable by doing everything I could think of to drag my husband to the cross. Then one day God let my husband say something so outlandishly foolish that it pretty much shocked me into freedom! When he made this insane statement,  it brought me to the place where I could finally say "wow, I can't fix this kind of spiritual blindness!" So I released him to God to deal with on a spiritual level,  which freed me to be able just to love him and be his wife. I've planted plenty of seeds, and God set me free with the understanding that I have ABSOLUTELY no control over whether those seeds become fruit or not.
So then, loving the new found freedom I had been given,  I decided that I was going to ask God to make me whole and set me free from the soul-crushing codependency that formed in me from childhood, followed by total social crippled-ness. You see,  I have long suffered from the double-edged sword of a desperate need for companionship coupled with a total lack of any idea how to develop friendships with other people. So I began to look at my life to try and figure out who I am,  besides a wife, so that I could figure out what type of people I might become friends with. The problem was, friendships begin with people sharing common interests, but I have always been a reclusive person with no hobbies or interests other than reading.  I guess you could say I didn't get out much! So then when I became an adult,  I rebelled and became a wild party person.  No lasting friends there!
So now, fast forward to 2012, and I gave my life to Christ.  Now I was wondering what kind of bonds I could make with other Christians. Still, though, no hobbies or interests. I am a really relational creature, so my life has been wrapped up in basically two relationships-one with my husband and the other,  more important and lasting,  with Jesus. The difference now though, is that I have come to see God as my everything. He is my king, my lord, my Savior, my closest friend, my father, every relationship I ever needed to be in to feel complete is met in Him! Now don't get me wrong, I still have a need for my husband and my two amazing sons, but God has set me free so that I now can say that even if my husband or my two sons were no longer part of my life, I would still be whole, complete and fulfilled in him! Praise Him! And as for friendships, I will be looking for others who share my ultimate passion - the deep and abiding love and need and desire for Jesus. But here's the freedom - if I can't find anyone like that in today's world, I am free to simply be me, with Jesus. If that means hours without others, I no longer see that aloneness as aloneness. I now can see it as it truly is - quality time with the one who loves me more than I could have ever dreamed possible. So am I still codependent? Yes, but not like before. I am totally set free from that unhealthy need for someone else to be with me, at least someone I can touch. Now the only companionship I can't survive without is met in the one person who has promised never to leave me, the one who is always present, even when there's no one else for miles. Jesus is my everything!