Amos 5:8a - Testimony

Seek the Lord and live.  Amos 5:8a

I've heard a lot of people say, "Get a life!"  What kind of life
should we be looking for?
The passage from the Desire of Ages is my favorite.  It is God
speaking directly to me saying, "You are aching under a load of care
because you are trying to reach the world's standards.  It's hard to
live up to their expectations, isn't it?"  Instead, He says, come to
me, I will give you an abundant life.  For a while, I said, "I've
got a lot of things that I want to accomplish before I'm willing to
let myself be given up to You, Lord.  You don't understand!"
Believe me, I was the one who didn't understand.  I never understood
what it really meant to follow Jesus.  I never knew how wonderful it
could be.
You haven't lived until you've let Him come into your life.  The
life that the "world" seeks is Satan's counterfeit life filled with
worldly ambitions and desires, but the life that Jesus gives is abundant
and full. He wants a relationship with us.  He wants to give us
life, not just freedom from our sins. He wants to give us a full
life-a life that is better than we had ever hoped or imagined.
I think that C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, gives a good
analogy of what I'm trying to say.  Suppose you met a person who knew
nothing about salt.  You gave him a pinch to taste and he experiences a
particularly strong, sharp taste.  You then tell him that in your country,
people use salt in all their cooking.  Might he not reply, "In that
case I suppose all your dishes taste exactly the same, because the
taste of that stuff you have just given me is so strong that it will
kill the taste of everything else."  But you and I both know that the
real effect of salt is exactly the opposite.  Very far from ruining
the taste of the veggie-loaf or potato salad, or cornbread-it
actually brings out the taste.  These foods don't show their real taste
until you have added the salt."
It is something like that with Christ and us.  The more we get
what we now call "ourselves" out of the way and let Him take us over,
the more truly ourselves we become--the more we live.  It is no good
trying to be "myself" without Him.  It is when I turn to Christ, when I
give myself up to His personality, that I first begin to have a real
personality of my own.
But, how do we find this life that Jesus wants to give us?  We
don't find it by looking for life or by looking at ourselves, rather
we find it by looking at HIM!  When we walk with Him, there is
movement and development.  Each day something is new!  To be Christian,
faith has to be new, that is, alive and growing.  It cannot be static,
finished, settled. When prayer and Scripture and worship and ministry
become routine, they are dead!
When He says, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light," He meant
it.  This truth is easy to believe when you've been trying to live
up to the world's expectations.  Jesus knows this, because like in
the Desire of Ages passage, "Jesus sees the end from the beginning.
In every difficulty He has His way prepared to bring relief.  Our
heavenly Father has a thousand ways to provide for us, of which we know
nothing.  Those who accept the one principle of making the service and
honor of God supreme, will find perplexities vanish, and a plain path
before their feet."  These words are true and we can never hear them
too much.  Our God is an awesome God.  Our eternal life with Him can
begin now as He reveals Himself to us and we learn to love Him more
and more.
May God's grace and the peace that passes all understanding be
with you.
Christina R Harris