Psalm 17:15

“As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.”

In 1 John 3:2 it says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is.” Both of these verses are talking about being in the likeness of Christ. When we are content with Him and look upon His face, then we become more like Him. This doesn’t mean being content and looking to Him sometimes, it means all the time. When Keith Wheeler was here he said something like this, “We become what we behold.” This was really convicting for me. As followers of Christ, we are supposed to reflect the joy and the glory of Christ on our faces and by the way we act at all times. When we fix our eyes on Jesus, we reflect His glory, but when our eyes are taken off of Him, that’s when we start to look like the world and all it beholds.

I know for myself, I let past struggles and shame come into my heart and it makes me build up high walls around my heart because I’m scared to be vulnerable. I’m scared to look to Christ at all times, because that requires vulnerability. I’m afraid that if people know what I’ve done in my past that they won’t look at me the same and will judge me. I’m trying to hide it even though God has redeemed me from past sin and shame. I’m telling Jesus that what He did on the cross wasn’t good enough for all of the bad things I’ve thought or done. I was holding on to the shame that I felt because I thought it was too big for God to redeem me from. Before Christ showing me what I was holding onto in my heart, I never truly believed that Christ had set me free. Even when we were getting our field assignments I didn’t feel like I was pure enough in my heart to go on tour and go to Uganda with my team. I was holding on to something that was a shame of my past because I didn’t think Christ had given me victory.  I was reminded by Liv that it’s not me who can be pure, it’s not my life, it’s never been about me, it has always been about Christ and what He did for me on the cross. He didn’t as me to be pure and perfect, He asked me to let Him come in and take all my past shame and give me victory in Him; to let Him do all the fighting for me.

After opening up to Liv and my team and seeing how God blessed me with them and they still loved me despite all my struggles was a big heart change for me. We’ve all had our past shame, but Christ is enough. He covers all of the shame with victory and freedom. Our past chains are broken and they don’t hold any of us back anymore. The Lord has just been working to turn all my walls into dust and ash so that I can be vulnerable with Him and my team as we travel together and live together. He is showing me that if He was the only one left, that He is enough for me. He has truly set me free. My application for this is to be praying with my team every night about my walls being brought down and finding victory in Christ.