Step Outside Yourself to Christ Within - Warrior Mom Wisdom - Week of May 19
Step Outside Yourself to Christ Within
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Visualize with me – pretend that you can actually step outside of yourself, and like water from the center of a water fountain, you step/reach out and then go back in. From the inner depths of yourself you step out again, return, rise up, and step out again – as if you are water in a water fountain. I saw this visual when I was thinking about stepping outside of myself to Christ within me. Jesus is the Living Water –
“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
I can now visualize myself stepping outside of myself to Christ within me. Since Christ is my living water, each time I rise up from the center of myself – it will actually not be the center of me from which I rise, but it will be the center of Christ within me from which I rise. And as long as I continue to drink from the cup that He offers, each time I step outside myself, I will feel more and more refreshed. It is for this reason that we can serve because the strength to serve does not come from “us” within us; rather, it is Christ within us that does the work of the Father.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of god’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will. For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many from one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; it if is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
Kristina Seymour loves to encourage and equip women through the Word and through community. She is the author of The Warrior Mom Handbook, The Warrior Mom Leadership Manual, and The Warrior Wife Handbook; they are available at Amazon.com. Kristina's Bible studies are for women who desire to live by faith in the midst of their everyday lives. She has learned that women can't survive on caffeine and animal crackers alone; women in the Word and in community are united and able to stand firm. To learn more about Kristina, please visit her website, https://kristinaseymour.com/. God loves to share His story of love and grace through us all, and Kristina believes that everyone has a story to tell.
