“If I only touch…”

I’m interested. In holiness. But not the kind I reach for and never quite get. Not the kind that keeps making demands and adding burdens. Not the stuffy, here’s what you need to do kind. Pull up your bootstraps kind. Whip yourself into shape kind. Witness more kind. Do this, don’t do that kind.

I want the kind that comes from touching the hem of a righteousness not my own. I want the kind where I call out in my darkness here and here and here and He hears and hears and hears me and gives me sight and more sight and more sight. I want the kind where He sees me in the crowd unable to move and says, “Do you wish to be made well?” and even after I say, “I have no one…” He reaches out and makes me whole there. The kind that after I prove what a wretch I am, He says, “neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.” The kind that says, “while you were yet.” The kind that doesn’t come from me. Not one inch.

wrong weapon

Jesus is the power of God. It is HIS obedience that pulls down strongholds. We are chasing our own tails if we think we can conquer our flesh with our own fleshly efforts. It is life and power that we need and that only comes through what has already been purchased for us in Jesus.

I thought taking thoughts captive meant I was always to be policeman to my own mind, but I am coming to believe that is not what is meant at all! We have the mind of Christ, but not because we produce it in ourselves, we have it only because it is available to us so that we can rely on it for what we need. It is not by our obedience that we bring thoughts into captivity, it is by HIS! It is basically, bring them (thoughts) into captivity to what has already been accomplished. Bring them captive to grace. To the “obedience of Christ.” To the gift of righteousness and all things freely given in Him. For it is by this, “by one man’s obedience that the many will be made righteous.”