Have you ever read or listened to a chapter in the Bible and then realized that you weren't fully engaged? When that happens, I feel like I’ve been listening to the Bible through a filter. I’ve simply been sitting there and straining all of God's glorious holiness, wisdom, and righteousness through a filter. I only took the tiniest amount I could from it. We usually don't do it intentionally, but this way of listening can significantly hinder us. It's time that we take the filters off and start positioning ourselves to hear God.

You can't expect that every unflattering characteristic and flaw will suddenly disappear just because you confront someone in your life. Sometimes, the outside can change quickly, but we must make fundamental changes before we act more like Jesus.  

You were designed much like a kettle: To be filled up and poured out. Sacrifice and generosity are the hallmarks of a vibrant follower of Jesus. However, I can say from experience that this does not come easy.

Consider this for a moment: Is it at all remotely possible that your knowledge of scripture resembles a Deep Dream rendering? Could you be referencing unconscious childish, heretical, or incomplete ideas in rendering an image of the truth?

At some point, we need to release any control we imagine we have and trust God to come through for us. When we surrender in the right ways, we will find that we get what we need.

The only way we're going to find a dependable, tame god is if we make him ourselves. We still do this seemingly primitive act today. We make gods out of our success, money, friends, spouses, parents, and kids. We think that if we push the right buttons and say the proper things, these gods will grant our wishes to be happy and safe.

God is not tame, but we can rely on him in the following ways.

We are born with a tendency to want to earn our growth. We long to attribute every good thing that happens to us to our goodness and cleverness. We want to do all the brushing ourselves, look in the mirror, and pat ourselves on the back for doing such an excellent job. However, when it comes to the process of becoming like Jesus, we have to give up this notion.