Come as you are, just don’t stay that way.

So I’ve been sitting on this one for a while now and just now found the time to write it out.

In our lives we are defined by where we come from and the things that we have done, either by others or it is how we define ourselves.  But when we look at what God calls us to, it is to leave our old selves, leave our pasts behind us, and follow Him as a new person.  We go to God broken and weighed down by our guilt and shame, but we leave different.  We leave walking closer to God, walking whole and new, without the burdens and hurts.

We find ourselves though holding on, we only know ourselves as the person with this problem or that vice.  It’s hard to let go and change.  It’s hard to admin that you have faults…  What is someone else going to think…  Will people still like me if I change…  These are the questions that go through our heads.  But you have to change, you have to come as you are but leave different.

It is the leaving different part, living different, being different part that is the challenge.  The latest series at our church has been on cleaning out your soul and doing all of these things above.  But one point that our pastor made this past weekend was that so many of us, “put on our church face,” we have things that we hide in our lives that we don’t want others to know about, that continually hold us back from being the person God wants us to be.  But it is also putting on this “church face” this act, that make so many people think of Christians as hypocrites.

So I pray that you will leave different and stay different.  Think about what you can do that will show those around you that your different.  What can you do that will show God to those around you and what sets you apart?