Over these past few weeks and months, God has continually used the I am Second movement to encourage myself and so many others as to what it is to live a life that is second only to Christ, and His will for our lives. I wanted to take a moment to share with you what living a life second in command to Christ looks like for me.
Many of you know the struggles I have faced with my weight over the years, and it continues to be a daily battle with food, but what you probably haven't heard is the underlying issues that I believe got me to that point of needing to change. I was living life with my goals and my wants at the forefront of my mind; I did not have a servant's heart, but rather a heart that put me first. I looked at successes as my own doing, my own claim to fame, which only set me up for failure.
In high school, I felt lost; I may have looked and acted the part of the confident, and always comedic, overweight Christian, but had no idea what I was doing with my life. I started to look at myself as a failure, living in the shadows of other's dreams, claiming to know a God that I had only learned about and not engaged in. I tried to figure out me, how I could be successful, and how I could make myself happy. What I did not know at the time was that it would never be me that could turn things around in my life, it would have to be Christ.
Then, one summer, on Agape Tour to New York City, God laid the truth on my heart in an unbelievable way. It was while reading Ephesians 2:8-9 that He revealed to me that I needed to enter into a relationship with Him if I wanted things to change in my life. I accepted the gift of Life on that tour, knowing full well that God and I had a lot of work to do in order to get me on the path that He had planned for my life. I had spent my life up to that point learning about God, reading the Bible, going for church, and singing for Him, without ever taking the time to get to know Him. It all began to make sense that night, and I knew I had to allow Christ to change me from the inside out.
Verse:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9
It has been a long process, but from that point on Christ has been at work in my life. He has humbled me, broken me, and built me back as a messenger of light for His purpose. I now understand that every success, and every privilege I have been given in this life has been the work of my Creator, and He deserves the glory for those things. It is in this understanding that I can show Christ for who He is, the lover of our souls, and the giver of all that is good. The weight loss is the physical change that everyone has been able to notice. Finally recognizing my body as a temple of the Holy Spirit allotted me the determination to change that for Him, and it has been a huge factor in my spiritual journey, but it is far from the most important change I have made in the past few years. The key change has been dropping the facade that I lived under for so long, emerging from the false pretenses I had set up for myself, and allowing Christ into my heart to break, change, and heal me from the inside out.
I realize now that in order to be made into the man of God I am today, Christ had to break down the walls of the old me. He has changed my heart, redeemed my soul, and ignited me with a passion for Him that I cannot help but share. Allowing Him into my life, truly getting to know Him and give Him control, has been the greatest decision I have ever made. I am Jacob Wager, and I am Second.
http://www.iamsecond.com/
Here is the link to the I am Second movement. I highly recommend checking these videos out and reflecting on what they could mean in your life.
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