I took a slow day recently and sat down to watch a movie. So-so movie. Classic good guy chases bad guy.
The bad guy, well, let me put that more accurately – the crazed, psychopathic, sadistic killer – enjoys the chase. He’s cocky and thinks he can’t lose.
He decides to make the game even more fun by coming straight to the door of the good guy, and hits him where it hurts most: his family.
The good guy internalizes that pain, that grief, and lets it boil inside him until the hatred turns to bitterness in his quest to hunt down and destroy his enemy.
In one last-ditch effort to mentally manipulate and control from his place of weakness, the bad guy spews to the other, “I…made…you.”
His last words are arrogant, demented, and maybe a little bit true.
In his quest to fight evil, the good guy gives in to the hatred the evil guy wanted him to. He lured the good guy in until he crossed that line before he even fully realized it. Or worse, he realized it but didn’t care anymore.
As their eyes locked and he used his last breath to try to control him and reel him in the rest of the way, speaking those domineering, pompous, mind-bending words, I thought about how the enemy of God does the same thing.
There are no new tricks up his sleeve. Oh, they may take different forms, different plots, different scenarios, but it’s always the same.
Slip in undetected in the shadows, gain our attention, come to our front doors if need be and attack us personally where he knows it’ll hurt most, and if he can time it just right, in the wake of some other trial, when we’re alone, when we’re tired, when we’re sick, when we’re stressed, maybe we’ll react in the flesh.
And if we react long enough, he’ll try to say he made us. He made who we’ve become, from being filled with anger, to unforgiveness, to bitterness, to leaving our faith and the love of Christ behind.
None of us is immune. Christians are his target, because Christ is his target.
Even if he can no longer take our eternal souls, he will still try to take our joy, our witness, and as much of our reward as he can.
But I don’t want the enemy to shape who I am.
I want to be shaped by the Christ who loved us enough to die for us and fill us with His Spirit so that He’s always with us.
I want to be shaped by the One who loves us enough to write His Word, His will, on pages for us to have, to read, to study and pray over, to hear Him speak to our hearts through.
I want every fiber of my being, every molecule, every thought, every word to be formed by the Christ who lives in me.
That can only happen when day by day, minute by minute, we hold onto Christ, giving up our lives for a life of faith hidden in Him.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
This is the new life we’ve been given in Christ. It is no longer our life, but Christ’s living in and through us. To some that may feel a little restrictive, but in reality it’s just the opposite.
We are now free of that destruction, that condemnation, that guilt and shame of sin, free from having to believe the deluded lies of the enemy. We no longer have to be lured in by the thief whose desire is to steal, kill, and destroy us.
Instead, Jesus said “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10
That word abundant is perissos, which means “in the sense of beyond; superabundant (in quantity) or superior (in quality); by implication excessive; preeminence: – exceeding abundantly above, more abundantly, advantage, exceedingly, very highly, beyond measure, more, superfluous, vehemently.”
In sharp contrast to the life Christ redeemed us from, we’re now free to live a life of forgiveness, hope, love, joy. We’re free to live in and through Christ forever.
But notice it says that we may have it more abundantly. It is our daily choice how much of that abundant life of Christ’s we want to live. Within those pages, Jesus gave us this to remember:
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23
Daily.
Daily we must deny ourselves, daily we must take up our cross, and daily we must choose to follow Christ if we want to live the abundant life Jesus died to give us.
We may not have a bad guy to physically chase, but in our hearts and minds we can chase the ones who have hurt us by holding onto unforgiveness and anger and letting it turn into bitterness.
Instead, we can leave the bad guys to God and chase after Christ and His love, joy, peace, hope, and forgiveness. We can choose faith in Jesus, and let Him shape us.
Heavenly Father, we choose to forgive those who have hurt us and leave them in your wise and capable hands. Help us deny ourselves, let go of our “old man” and the world’s ways and abide in you daily so we can be transformed into the image of your beautiful Son and live the abundant life you so desire to give us. It’s in Christ we pray, amen.
