All of yourself?

In life we often present the good parts of ourselves to others and keep the less desirable, more ugly bits, to ourselves. It`s only natural to want to keep less presentable things hidden from the view of others - for example I wouldn`t like everyone to see me first thing in the morning before I`ve had a chance to shower and sort out my hair!

But it`s most important that we don`t hide any part of ourselves from Jesus. The minute we start to hide the unpresentable things in our hearts from Him, we enter into unreality. We aren`t offering Him our whole selves, but instead we`re making a `soulish` effort to be something other than totally in need of Him.

Jesus wants all of us, not just bits of us. He`s passionate about knowing the real you, warts and all. When we reveal our whole heart to Him, and, in utter humility, let Him, the holy and blameless Son of God, even wash our feet, only then do we truly enter into the depth of relationship with Him that He wants so much. We often try and self-remedy our flaws, a bit like Adam and Eve did with fig leaves (Genesis 3:7). But we know from that story that when we acknowledge our nakedness before God He will clothe us in a much better way than we ever could ourselves (Genesis 3:21).

It takes trust on our part to be this vulnerable, and often determination to overcome our desire to try and fix things ourselves. For some this journey can be more troublesome than others. It depends how deeply we have put our trust in ourselves, and it takes time to unravel it all. Our very nature, together with the enemy`s strategy of focusing on our weak areas, can sometimes make our old habits come back again. The blessing for us is that God looks at our heart attitude and will walk alongside us on this journey, no matter which point of it we are on, and He never loses His passion or zeal for intimacy with us!

If you haven`t already done so, why not make a decision today to give your true self - wholly and unedited - to Jesus. That might take some time to follow through on, but remember where the heart goes, the feet will follow.

Prayer: Father God, thank You for the stunning reality that You want to be close and intimate with the real me. I`m sorry for the times when I haven`t been completely open with You. I want to give You my whole unedited heart. Please show me how I can do this day by day. Thank You for Your faithfulness to me, in Jesus` name.