It is something I mention quite a bit, a statement often met with a blank expression suggesting I just might need to clarify. So what exactly do I mean when I talk about “cooperating with the Lord in what He wants to do in my life?”
Well, I am not a big proponent of formulas when it comes to spiritual things because I am well aware of my own temptation when following a step-by-step formula to leave out the Holy Spirit in the process. With that said, this is about as close to a prescribed formula as I get. This one doesn’t leave the Holy Spirit out, but rather keeps Him as the focal point.
Step 1: Listen
I must make it a priority to listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to me through my conscience. If I am uncertain of His voice, then I need to ask myself: “Am I being loving right now in the attitudes, intentions and motivations of my heart?” The Lord will always respond if I make the effort to listen. He will correct me in how I am being unloving and will also instruct me in the loving thing I need to do instead. The Holy Spirit will never force me to listen as He speaks correction and instruction to me through my conscience. It is my responsibility is to cooperate with the Lord by being intentional about listening.
Step 2: Obey
I must obey, even though I may not feel like it. After all, obeying the Lord means I must reject my flesh, and my flesh will always resist. That is why obeying the Lord as He teaches me how to love much and love well is a matter of choice, not emotion. When the Holy Spirit corrects me, I must choose to stop my unloving ways of relating. When the Holy Spirit instructs me, I must choose to begin to love in the way He reveals to me. It is my responsibility to cooperate with the Lord by choosing to obey.
There is one other heart-level issue that needs to happen in the midst of the listening and obeying. I must repent. You see, it is possible for me to obey without repenting. Now don’t get me wrong here. The Lord wants me to withhold my unloving behavior even if I do not have the feelings to back it up. But He doesn’t want me to remain in that place. He desires my repentance and the brokenness that accompanies it.
True repentance occurs when I realize just how much I have hurt someone else by my unloving ways and decide I don’t ever want to hurt them like that again. So many times I have had to cry out, “Lord, show me just how much I am hurting my child…or my husband…or You, Lord…so that my heart will break over the pain I have caused.” Unless I experience the brokenness of repentance, all of my best efforts to change will be in vain. I may be able to control my flesh, but I will never be free from it. The freedom only comes after I repent. It is my responsibility to cooperate with the Lord by crying out to Him to bring me to a place of repentance.
That’s it. The Lord wants me to cooperate with what He wants to do in my life. It is only as I do my part, as I listen and obey and as I repent, that He is able to do His part, the transformation my heart. So often in the past, I have asked Him to change me, expecting Him to do all the work. It doesn’t work that way. My spiritual growth has always been and will always be a cooperative effort that I must actively participate in with the Lord.
And haven’t we all heard the same thing said before in different words?
I am called to be Spirit-led and put my flesh to death:
For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. (Romans 8:13-14)
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (Galations 5:24-25)
I am called to identify with Christ:
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galations 6:14)
I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10-11)
I am called to take up my cross and follow Jesus:
“Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:38)
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. (Matthew 16:24)
I grew up hearing these and similar passages. How is it that I could have been so hardened as to justify my sin instead of running to the Lord to find freedom from it? I have been guilty of watering down the Scriptures, of soft-selling my own sin – the very sin that sent Jesus to the cross. But today I have been given the opportunity once again to either cooperate with the Lord or to reject Him and His ways of love. Now, this very hour, is the time for me to listen and obey.
~Christi Faagau