Do you recall when you first fell in love with Jesus?
How easy it was to do all the little things
How easily you dealt with your faults
How is it you can't do that now?
You have lost the simplicity
You have picked up the rational
You reason why it is the way it is
How this should change
So you try to reason a fix
When you see others do you see their faults first?
Or do you see their needs?
Sometimes they need to be told what they're doing is wrong
Sometimes they just need to know someone cares
Sometimes they need to be left alone
How do you know what they need?
Do you hear them telling you their needs?
We get away from simplicity
We start to focus on sinless perfection
When we do our focus shifts towards removing sin?
Focus on the simplicity of that first love
No masks, perfectly transparent, admitting your sins
Watching for truth to come by the hand of grace
In this way we are slowly transformed
Godliness is the result
{11:3} But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. {11:4} For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.
2 Corinthians 11:3-4
Ever notice how honest children can be?
It's only when they reason it's better to hide the truth
That they give up this simplicity
That's when they start rationalizing behavior
You know, 'Joey made me do it, it's not my fault, she started it'
As adults we can come up with all sorts of reasoning too
'I was born this way'
'In my childhood I was treated a certain way'
{1:18} Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. {1:19} If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: {1:20} But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
Isaiah 1:18-20
You can walk in the complication of reasoning it all out on your own
Trying to explain, justify and resolve on your own
Or you can walk in the simplicity of following Christ
Love tears down the complication
Simply admit your faults
Simply admit your weaknesses
Simply know you need Jesus
{2:1} Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. {2:2} And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. {2:3} Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. {2:4} No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. {2:5} And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. {2:6} The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits. {2:7} Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things.
2 Timothy 2:1-7
Listen for the voice of the one who loves you
![[pulsating cross]](astar2.gif)
