My pastor preached a sermon recently on getting out of the grey. The text was Hebrews 12:1 “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, laying aside the weights and sins that so easily beset us and run our race with endurance.” The focus was not on the sin but on the weights. That in this life, the Christian life, the longer we live it the things that start to hold us back aren’t the black, the obvious sin, they are the grey, the weights.
This whole grey concept is something that has greatly challenged me.
I’ve said for years of myself, “I’m an all or none kind of person”. I related my journey of growing up in the faith, rebelling, then returning, to this ‘quality’ an all-or-none person. When it comes to grey, I say why bother if its not white. “Everything is permitted, but everything isn’t beneficial.” Paul wrote to the Corinthians. I’ve clung to that in my pursuit of Jesus. ‘If I’m going to do this life I’m going to do it all the way.’
Some of the ‘grey’ things that I’ve cast off are things like secular music, watching TV, and not eating meat. Music and TV are such strong convictions for me that it’s hard to say they could be grey areas. Especially since the Bible tells us to guard our hearts and minds, how vital music is in the kingdom of Heaven, and the direct adverse effects on our hearts from the things we hear and see. Food, however, is directly referenced in the Word as a personal conviction, so that was an easy one for me.
But leading up to this sermon God has been prompting me in surrender, in giving it all to him. This morning is mediation I began to see just what I was needing to surrender. My ideologies. My self-righteousness. My all-or-none personality trait that isn’t really accurate. When I rebelled from the Lord I denied him for a few months, then when I was about to die I cried out for him to save me. I continued in my rebellion but I always held on to him as the absolute truth. I just wanted to do things my way. That isn’t all or none.
Now that I’m back and have given him my whole heart and aim to do everything his way, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still things, ideas, that I’ve developed and hold on to that aren’t his. That’s what he’s been routing out.
I want to remain open with an unending invitation to Holy Spirit to purify my thoughts and motives.
Lord I surrender to you the ideas that I’m already all-or-none, I have no sinful choices in me, and that I’ve already accomplished something that no longer needs attention. I ask you to replace those things with a greater need for reliance on you, definitions of myself that you write, and an awareness of right choices in my ideology. Thank you for your attention to detail Lord and answering my heart cry to be more like you!
The W.O.R.D. 