But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

2 Timothy 3:1-7

LEARN

Why do I lack self-discipline and have little victory over my sin struggle when it comes to laying down my life for Christ? When I experienced the healing of knowing Christ for the first time, I found a lot of my fears, shame and idols diminishing. My heart was healed and the most important part of my soul was now replaced with God’s indwelling spirit. Still, after a few years of being saved and enjoying the nature of the Christian culture I began to have a different response to this gratitude for salvation. The realities of being Christ’s, was (and is) the best thing in the world, but my self-centeredness led me to waste this blessing instead of using the blessing on others or to sincerely fight the good fight of faith to bring God the glory. I desired to be obedient to God through difficult moments in life, but only to gain relief from my troubles, not for the sake of His name being praised alone. You see, I can read about the riches of being his, identify myself as a believer, even enjoy the cultural norms of Christian community but struggle to have victory in my own life. My identity was more like those the bible talks about who have an appearance of godliness but deny its power. I may have been healed from a lot of things in my past through coming to know Christ, but idleness became my norm and I failed to keep walking towards holiness.

Being made whole is progressive. It is not a one-time healed, mountain top experience, it is a journey past the one mountain top, down through various valleys and up different peaks through an array of scenery. It is daily walking hand in hand with Christ. This journey to wholeness is what keeps going as long as we keep responding to what Christ has done in his finished work on the cross. We don’t stop when the healing comes or when our issue subsides. His glory is better than our temporary satisfaction. We are healed so we can continue becoming whole.

Wholeness mirrors our sanctification. It is what we are in Christ positionally, but also what we are presently becoming. We are going from less sinful tendencies to even less sinful tendencies while holding in our hearts the promise that powerfully fuels our endurance all together, “where sin abounds grace abounds more” Romans 5:20. The grace of God doesn’t just provide us the forgiveness we need, it transforms us to into Christ’s likeness. As we continue from the initial healing of being Christ’s, we need a continual practice of running to the source of wholeness. Even though our nature is sinful, and at the point of salvation Christ covered us with his righteousness, our souls will always need saving. Healing work is not yet finished. We experience wholeness by experiencing Christ. As we seek to obey Christ we can continually increase in being wholly his. This is not a lofty unreachable concept. The bible outlines practical and concrete ways in which we can experience Christ and know what He is doing and what He promises he will do right now in our lives. Though many brothers and sisters are healed by Christ’s powerful work in that now they see him and long for him, we need his continual healing power to become more and more like him. Join us as we reach to the depths of God’s promises for the power to keep on keeping on; becoming less of us and more of him.

KNOW

Meditate on 2 Peter 1:3-4

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.