Glory to Glory

From Brendon: Have you ever been in a thunderstorm? I mean REAL thunderstorm with lightning shooting across the sky right over your head, hail, thunder that shakes you to the core, and curtains of rain that constantly pound the Earth?! If you have then you know the awe and fear, maybe just slight, that it creates in you and there's a hope and a looking forward to it happening again. If you haven't experienced this, then you need to spend some time in the Mid West. Believe it or not, I'm not going to use this as a jumping off point for a spiritual lesson, although we all could. Feel free to ponder on that if you like.

I'm going to share something simple that God has been pressing on mine heart.

Honesty is a great policy, so I'll follow this great policy and let you know that I'm torn between terror and excitement. All because God is asking for transformation. Yes, He's asking me. Yes, God does a work in our hearts to cause transformation, but if I choose I could refuse maybe He would leave me alone, or I say "YES" to His calling on my life and I get to partner with Him in this age and see Him use me in some extraordinary things. Right now, that struggle is over lifestyle. Let me lay out what my life was like before moving our here: wake up and spend 30-60 min. in prayer, reading the Bible, go to work, count the hours before I was able to get home, get off work and go home, cook dinner, eat dinner, watch a movie or an episode of Lost with Kara then go to bed and sometimes we would pray for 10 minutes together in bed. Not bad, it was comfortable and every now and then we would meet up with friends or go hiking...something cool and really fun. Actually, I really enjoyed that life, but I knew I wasn't really seeking after Jesus (Deut. 6:4). There's the issue. God is calling me from that seeking of comfort, the reading His Word as duty, boring times of prayer and selfishness. He is calling me to see His Word as the primary pleasure in my life (that's craziness, right?), see people as the very children of God and prayer and fasting as transformative, and as a lifestyle. Here's a great verse:
"And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." (2 Cor. 3:18) In verse 16 Paul says that when we look to the Lord the veil is removed. I believe this is not just that moment when we are saved but it is a continual, as we keep on looking the veil is removed more and more. The glass that we see through dimly is a little less dim the more we say "YES" to Him and agree to partner with Him. The GOD OF THE UNIVERSE WANTS US TO BE HIS PARTNERS! Can't wrap my head around that one. That's what I'm terrified and excited to do. May our Creator, who is God, give us grace to have our greatest pleasure in life be Him.