Plugged In

After much deliberation, I decided my living room’s theme would be “Texas Chic.” Or at least, that’s how I described the look I was going for to my friend who volunteered to decorate. I suppose I should mention that I bought my first house this year.  Yep, It’s official…I’m a big girl now.  

Girlfriends, let me just say for the record that I had no idea the amount of time, money, and effort it was going to take to get settled into my new place. Weeks after I moved, I was still living out of boxes, and the only furniture that I owned was my bedroom furniture from college. No one warned me about the nesting gene that women have. I was completely unprepared for the phenomenon that would overcome me once I had my own house. All of a sudden, I needed, desperately needed to watch the sundry of home improvement and the decorating programs on television. Seriously, I was obsessed. Obsessed, broke, and did I mention living out of boxes?

If I’m honest, the television shows did more harm than good. They left me too overwhelmed with options to make a decision. Should each “space” be modern, classic, traditional, or contemporary? So many choices!!! The whole process of choosing paint colors, picking furniture, and deciding on one decorating style was more than I could handle. I found it strange that I had no problem committing to a 30-year mortgage, but for the life of me, I couldn’t commit to a sofa. I know. It’s crazy. 

 I forgot to mention that I moved during one of my busiest ministry seasons. So even though I longed for my home to feel settled, I was at my wits end as to how I could get it all done in the midst of traveling, speaking, and writing. Then God sent me a decorating “Angel.” My precious friend (whose name happens to be Angel), sensing the dilemma that I was in, stepped in and said, “Just let me handle it. I’ll get everything arranged and decorated for you.” 

Halleluiah!

The girl’s got skills. She is super creative and knows my personality so well. All she needed from me was a decorating theme. That’s where the idea of “Texas Chic” was born.  I saw this photo of wild horses running and fell in love with the passion captured by the photographer, so I asked Angel to decorate my living room around that print. 

So one day while I was away on a speaking engagement, my friend created her own version of the show, “While You Were Out.” While I was out, she and a few other friends performed the most amazing decorating transformation you can imagine. My living room went from feeling like a bland and boring asylum to fabulous Texas chic in a day. 

Like I said, the girl’s got skills. Everything is so “me” without “me” having to do the work. When I walked in for the “big reveal,” I was truly blown away by all the hard work and little touches she accomplished on such a small budget. She completely captured the theme without it feeling obnoxious or over the top. My favorite detail is a Texas star that she positioned atop my armoire.  Decorators say that lighting is the key and I agree. The room looks it’s best when the lights are dim and only the star is shining bright. 

A few days after the makeover, I realized another benefit to the star—it served as a fabulous nightlight. Since I must walk through the living room to get to the kitchen at night, the star shines in the darkness so I can easily navigate around furniture. 

However, one night I woke up and needed something to drink. I stumbled down the hall towards the kitchen, entering the living room, I discovered it pitch black. The star wasn’t shining. I couldn’t see anything. Panic ensued. No, not because I’m afraid of the dark, but because I feared the star’s light had permanently gone out. You see, Angel found the star in a clearance bin at Pottery Barn, so I knew I couldn’t get another one and was anxious that my favorite decorating detail was broken.

Then it dawned on me…check the plug! 

Yay! Decorating catastrophe averted. The star was simply unplugged from it’s power source.  As I was plugging the cord into the electric outlet, I thought, “this is why so many Christians struggle to live as the light of Christ in the world—we aren’t plugged into our power source. Although God called us to be lights in the darkness, we fail so often because we are unplugged and trying to shine in our own power.”

A Christian’s power source is the Holy Spirit of God. God didn’t just save us from our sin and give us eternal life; He also gave us the power to glorify Him. In order to understand how to stay plugged in, I will explain who the Holy Spirit is, how He empowers us to live the Christian life, and what two potential barriers that often limit the Spirit’s power. 

The Power Source

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, Oh God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Psalm 42:1-2

To best understand the Holy Spirit’s role as our power source, we must return briefly to the heart of our faith: our desperate need for God.  Psalm 42 clearly articulates the human condition. We thirst for God. Thirst is defined as: painfully feeling the want of something, or to eagerly long for something. Just as God created within each of us a thirst mechanism for water and a hunger mechanism for food, so He also placed with our souls a thirst for Him. We are created by Him and for Him. 

Born into sin, we are separated from God and continually feel the want until this relationship is restored. Blaise Pascal famously said, “Man was created with a God-shaped hole in his soul that can only be filled by God Himself.” To remedy this problem, Jesus, God Himself, stepped into creation, took on human flesh and brought about the reconciliation of God and man through His sacrificial death. 

During Jesus’ earthly ministry, He addressed our fundamental problem and invited all thirsty souls to come to Him to find true life. He said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:37-38) 

The context of this statement is the annual Jewish Feast of Tabernacles. Each year, the Jewish people would celebrate how the Lord provided for their every need during their forty-year wilderness journey.  As you can imagine, God providing water in a barren dessert for millions of people was a pretty big deal. This was a joyful feast, rich with symbolism. 

On the last and “greatest day of the feast,” the High Priest would lead the people in a procession from the Temple through Jerusalem to the Pool of Siloam. Here, he would fill a pitcher with water, and the procession would continue back to the Temple—every step of the journey in complete silence.  Then, amidst thousands of worshipers, the High Priest would pour the water out onto the altar—an act of worship that acknowledged God alone as the source of life.

At that precise moment, Jesus stood, and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink”  (You just gotta’ love Jesus, He’s not subtle.) There, in the midst of the pomp and pageantry of religion, He revealed that He was the fulfillment of the symbol. He alone is the Living Water that quenches the thirst of man. 

In case you think the procession just carried on its merry way, think again. The entire city was silent when the Son of God shouted his message.  His hearers did not miss Jesus’ meaning. He had the audacity to claim equality with God and set himself forth as the solution to humanities greatest need. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that Jesus never claimed to be God. He knew exactly who He was and why He was sent.

Jesus’ invites thirsty souls to “come and drink.” To drink means to believe. Friends, this invitation is more than mere “head knowledge.” To drink implies to experience, to trust and to depend upon Him. When we come to Jesus and drink of the Living Water, we forsake other fountains, admitting that they will never truly satisfy.  Trusting in Jesus for life is what it means to be a Christian. 

Notice what Jesus said next…

“Jesus said, ‘Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive.” John 7:38-39

God recognizes that forgiveness of sin is not enough to cure the human condition; we need a new nature, with new desires and new ability if we are to glorify Him. This new nature is the Holy Spirit of God living within us. Just as Jesus promised, whoever believes in Him receive His Spirit. 

God knows that we can’t live radiant lives without His power. As I tell women all the time, if we could glorify God on our own, then the cross wouldn’t have been necessary and Jesus wouldn’t have bothered to send us His Spirit. That’s why the Apostle Paul said in Colossians 1:27, “it is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Our only hope to live glorious lives comes through the power of God living in us.

“When Jesus said, ‘You are the light,’ we hear, “you are the light,” and we think the light has to come from us. So we try to generate the light ourselves. After a few attempts, it should become obvious that we just don’t have the power. But we keep trying anyway. The Scripture says, ‘In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.’ This is a massive principle to remember: The light comes only from the life—the life of Christ in us.”—Shine: Make Them Wonder What You’ve Got by The Newsboys

Christianity is not a self-improvement religion in which one tries really hard to do better, to work harder, or to be good. A genuine follower of Jesus says, "I can't do it.”  I need Jesus and His Spirit working in me if I’m going to glorify God.”  Girls, we must come to the end of ourselves and recognize that we don't have the power to glorify God on our own.  By faith, we believe in Jesus and He puts His Spirit within us, enabling us to shine brightly as lights in the darkness. 

©MarianJordan2010