My Thirty Day Faith Dare – Day Eleven

A Different Life – Dare to Live No Longer for Self

Galatians 2:20 – I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Author: "When we try to protect ourselves, we often put up walls that keep even God’s voice out. What if we laid ourselves aside? What if we believed, really believed, that God’s love is powerful enough to protect us, keep us, and guide us into everything we will never need in our lifetime? What if, because of this love, we began to live differently than anything we ever imagined? Faith is like breaking out of our own little world of experience and living in abandoned devotion to Him."

Today’s Dare: Live No Longer for Self

Today’s truth is speaking to me…
I am a stubborn, self-reliant, fiercely independent woman with a rebel heart. Through much of my life my motto has been “Ain’t nobody gonna be the boss of me.” I have been kicked around enough to learn that the only person I can trust and depend on is me – and the older I grow, the more boundaries I build to protect what is left of my shattered, tattered and scarred self. This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy people – I’m not some hermit who lives in a dark little room peeking out from behind the blinds – no, most people don’t see the invisible room from which I peer that is built with mistrust, suspicion, and disappointment. I am a survivor, that is what I allow you to see, and my life is my own.

But that’s a lie. My life isn’t my own. My life belongs to Christ. I’m supposed to lay it down at His feet each day, lift up my will as a sacrifice of praise to Him. That’s a hard one – to unclench these fists and let it all go, like sand, so that my hands will be open to His will, His blessings. It sounds good, but it’s soooo much harder to do. As the author writes, “What if I believed God’s love was enough? Enough for me to live differently than ever before, ever imagined???" How would that look? How would that sound? How would that feel?

God is asking me to…
- Believe His love, His promises
- Remember that God wants the best life for me
- Remember that the enemy doesn’t love me, but masquerades as a lover (ain’t THAT the truth!)

My challenge is to…
- Live bigger than the smallness of myself
- Trust Him for strength in the areas that tempt me to live in ways that aren’t God’s best for me

Father, my heart does want to live in abandoned devotion to you. I want a rebel wild faith that is tamed only by You, corralled by Your Holy Spirit, laughing with You, running with You, being still before You and knowing You are God. Take the rest away; I give it freely, because it’s all nothing but dung without you. My dreams and hopes and ambitions will only be fully realized when they are in Your hands, along with my heart. I will only be completely me when I am lost in You.