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If asked, most people consider themselves fans of sight. We live in a visual world—driving, shopping, working, browsing the web— all greatly dependent on our ability to see. Advertisements aim to appease our sight before anything else, for our eyes are a primary window through which we experience this world.
Many of us are guilty of taking advantage of our sight. Like breathing and blinking, it’s not something we think of often. In fact, only when our vision is distorted or impaired to we become painfully aware of our dependency on two very small parts of our body. Like our physical sight, most people remain grossly oblivious to their spiritual sight. We find ourselves bogged down with the physical aspects of life we see, to the detriment of our spiritual health. When this happens, our spiritual gauges aren’t tuned and we fade into cycles of meaninglessness without passion or direction. Without realizing it, the cycles of meaninglessness translate into beings without meaning, purpose, or course. We stop living and settle for existing. Our existence dims into repetitive cycles of monotony, and we surrender the eternal glory we’re created for. What we need is perspective—to keep the lenses of our hearts and minds immersed in the Gospel, cleaned and seeing straight. Only the Gospel awards true perspective. It alone is centered on God, His purposes, and His plan of redemption through which we find security, meaning, and purpose. Perspective without the Gospel equates to a sun without warmth. It doesn’t make sense and it can’t happen. The tension we combat on a daily basis is our sad attempt to make the incoherent a reality. We try to find security, meaning and purpose from the world’s perspective, which is diametrically opposed to God’s. This renders us frustrated, stressed and strained without any hope of getting better. Disciples of Christ cannot afford living through lenses of this world. The Gospel alone must be the lens through which we view life, love, and eternity. Segregating our lives into chambers where God only gets one of two is a recipe for utter catastrophe. When we accept Christ, He becomes the chamber in which all of life is placed! The Gospel is not an addition to our lives, it’s a transplant—an absolute replacement of systems and modes of operation. Once we’re saved we cannot function according to the ways of the world anymore. That’s like trying to fit a circle in a square hole. It doesn’t work; yet we spend so much of our lives trying. God’s truth isn’t just a lens we’re encouraged to look through from time to time. Weekend services and mid-week small groups aren’t specified times to put our Gospel-glasses on, only to take them off when we exit the door. We’re not occasional participants in God’s Gospel initiative; we’re slaves to it! In Christ, our lives become all about His truth and purposes, which cannot be separated from the Gospel! No longer do we pursue what we once did. We become who we now are in Jesus. This only happens when we submerge ourselves in His Gospel every day—when we beg for Him to make His truth the lens through which we see, experience, and thrive. It’s easier to act on when we realize we’re not capable of truly living otherwise! God alone brings spiritual sight to our physical eyes. He doesn’t just clean the lens of our old ways of thinking; He replaces them with new ones through which we can genuinely flourish! All we need to do is let go and let Him! Let Him replace the dingy lenses of this world with the lens of His Gospel. Our black and white one dimensional vision will transform into eternal 3-D in radiant color! Let Jesus be your all-consuming, perfect, holy and glorious lens for all your sight!
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Not sure if you’ve noticed yet, but God and Christianity often operate BACKWARDS—contrary to the normal, predictable, and much-enjoyed ways of this world.
We worldly people love normalcy. Consistency is our friend and predictability is what we bank on. We’re basically control freaks. Rational ways of thinking and the law of karma feed our addictions of control. As long as things go our way, everything is hunky dory. Random, unpredictable events freak us out because we lose control. When control is taken out of our hands, we get nervous, angry, grumpy, and bitter. We invest in the “rules” and expect the results to be of our liking. When they aren’t, we get mad and throw a fit. We mount our soapboxes to complain about why bad things happen to good people—as if figuring that out will make it all better. After pitching a fit, our tendency is to take control of the bad situation and fix it. This approach fails quickly. First of all, we’re not in control of anything. We like to fool ourselves into thinking we are, but we’re not. Every aspect of life can at any time be taken away from us—our families, friends, job, hobbies, houses, etc. No one is outside the reach of peril, none are immune to catastrophe. Second, any “fix” we bring to the table is temporary at best. Fallible people cannot produce infallible solutions. The best we can hope to do on our own is seal a leak with a bandaid. We may prevent a few drops from plummeting to the ground, but the temporary dam will burst eventually. Scripture prescribes a backwards approach, telling us to turn our attention outward—from ourselves to Jesus. Again, we are incapable of producing a lasting solution. Ridding the world of evil is not our job; nor would we be effective at it. Fighting the fight, remaining strong in the faith, and encouraging others along the way is our calling, but even that is done through a power not our own. Jesus is our Answer. The Gospel is the solution to every problem we encounter. This flies in the face of everything we’ve been taught. If I have a problem, I need to figure out how to fix it, and then do it! In other words, “Me, me, me, me, ME!” I can figure this out, I can fix it, I got it. In God’s economy (the only one that matters, by the way), the mantra is backwards. The Gospel screams Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! We have no part in it. As one pastor says frequently, the only thing we contribute to our salvation is our reason for needing it. JESUS is the solution to our sin problem, continues to be the solution to our sin problem, and will always be the solution to ALL the problems in this world! How does Jesus help me with my car that just died? Or when I lose my job? Or when I have to bury my child? Jesus is the answer by transforming our minds to align with His. Pain and suffering are real, and He graciously provides us the power to cope through His Gospel. But the purpose of the Gospel is not to fix the situation to our liking. The purpose of the Gospel is to fix our eyes on Jesus. We—all our lives both good and bad—exist to glorify HIM; He doesn’t exist to glorify us. This world isn’t our home. That’s backwards. We invest all our lives, time, energy, and finances into making our lives comfortable here. No wonder we freak out when situations cause us discomfort! The Gospel in all its backward glory exclaims, “You are NOT created for THIS WORLD. You are created for ME—for GOD and HIS glory.” It doesn’t just patch the leak, it replaces the pipe. Ease of pain comes when our thinking pipes awaken to the Gospel. Only realizing who Jesus is and who we are in Him frees us from excruciating pain in this life. The pain doesn’t disappear, but it’s refocused into a Gospel-perspective. For that to happen we must surrender. Our Master Plumber (never thought that would be an analogy for God, did ya?) must replace our leaky thinking pipes. It will hurt and it will stand in stark contrast to everything we thought we knew, but it’s ALWAYS worth it in the end. Being backwards in this world means being straightforward with Jesus. Get straight with the Gospel. Christ will take it from there. Over $60 BILLION found its way into America’s lottery system in 2008. I’m not really a money girl, but I found this interesting:
A lottery ticket purchaser is… 5 times more likely to be eaten by a shark 6,000 times more likely to be hit by a car And 500,000 times more likely to die in an airline crash than winning the lottery. (http://www.saneok.org/files/Facts&Stats/LottoFacts.pdf) In other words, investing your money in the lottery equates to flushing it down the toilet! An investment that has a 1 in 54 million chance of winning is a waste of time. Yet for some inconceivable reason, people place their hope in it and play anyway. They spend hard-earned money hoping they’ll be that lucky winner. I could write an entire book on the pointlessness and detrimental consequences of gambling, but that’s for another time. What grasps my attention tonight is the thought process of those who gamble—specifically, the flimsy nature of the hope that drives them. Worldly wishes and aspirations are wishy-washy. They possess zero foundation for the wisher to believe it will come true. We use these terms flippantly: “I hope it doesn’t rain.” “We hope the concert won’t be sold out.” “I wish he would ask me out!” And on and on and on. Hopes and wishes of the world have no sure footing to stand on. We would like for them to come true, and we may yearn for their fruition adamantly. But in the end, wishing and hoping cannot produce results. They have no hands and feet, only desires that occupy our minds and dreams. Scripture’s definition of hope once again turns the world’s definition on its head. Hope is only as meaningful as the object we place it in. For the world that means all hope will fall short at some point. Hope in winning the lottery means we place our faith in the lottery. Of course it’ll let us down! Putting hope in politicians leads us nowhere—they’re fallen people just like us (some more fallen than others)—and are bound to let us down. In the Gospel, hope is much different than the world because it is based in Christ. In Christ also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory…I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. Nowhere in this passage does Paul say we might have an inheritance or we may have a place in God’s plan. Quite the opposite! We have an inheritance, we have been predestined, He does work all things after the counsel of His will, we can know the hope of His calling—the true riches of His inheritance to us as saints! No wishy-washiness here! In the Gospel hope is guaranteed because its object is Christ. In the Gospel, hope is not founded by what we do or what life may throw our way. It’s based on Who Christ is and what He’s already done for us. When our hope lies in ourselves or things of this world, we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment. When our hope rests in Christ, He becomes is guarantor and He will not let us down. Only when our hope extends outside ourselves in Jesus is it secure. Hope in Christ is steadfast, unmoving, strong, and a unwavering. It cannot be shaken, moved, destroyed, or taken away. Christ is our guarantor for true hope—hope that seals us with eternal life, not wishful fantasies. What are you placing your hope in today? Something in this world that will fade away? Or in Christ where you’re investment is guaranteed a return of glory beyond your imagination? Hope in Christ. Let Him be the object and focus of your life, dreams, and desires. It’s the one bet you’ll never lose. The one investment that won’t let you down. Emptiness is not something we typically strive for. In fact, it’s something we avoid at all costs. Hollow, caverness feelings act as black holes in our hearts that nothing can fill. We’ve all been there. Each of us has experienced a time in our lives that’s left us empty and hopeless afraid to go on or wake up tomorrow.
Scripture approaches emptiness from different perspectives. The traditional is the God-shaped-hole approach that Evangelicals love. But there’s also the Philippians 2 approach which, in true Gospel form, turns everything on its head. Philippians 2 ranks high on my list of favorites (if such a list can exist without being blasphemous). Paul begins the passage with a slightly sarcastic spin on church unity—since Christ is one, since there’s fellowship in the Spirit and consolation in love, since there’s affection and compassion as believers, then we should all be living like it! We should be of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in Spirit, intent on one purpose. No room for selfishness here. The fee to enter this kind of fellowship is humility and sacrifice—two main themes in this passage. The binding agent of unity with both God and others is Jesus Christ. Jesus shows us how to have unity. In typical American-go-get-‘em style, we get a nice little tutorial for how to receive and maintain unity. Step ONE: Have the Attitude Christ had Step TWO: How to do Step ONE 2a: Christ, who existed in the form of God… We strike out pretty fast on this one since we’re not deity. Next. 2b: Did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped… I’m afraid we strike out on this one too. Who in their right mind would not hold onto their position as God? Think about it. Being God—the Creator and Sustainer of the universe and all that’s in it—and not considering it a status to be kept. Come on! Most of us would settle for being a CEO and wouldn’t dare give that up! 2c: But emptied Himself Theologians debate what this means precisely, but in essence, it means that Christ surrendered the rights and privileges He had as God when He came to earth. He still had access to His omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, but being fully human required Him to lay down certain divine attributes. Would you empty yourself of power, strength and might to save people who wanted nothing to do with you? Strike 3. 2d: Taking the form of a bondservant Not only did Jesus surrender His divine attributes to become a part of His creation, He became a bondservant. There’s nothing tricky about that word. Jesus became a servant on our behalf. God sent Him to this world as a slave—to seek, save, and serve the lost. He came to serve us in accordance with God’s will at the expense of His own. 2e: And being made in the likeness of men God submitting Himself to become one of His created beings? Pretty tough to imagine, yet Christ made it a reality. Fully God and fully man, Christ experienced every temptation imaginable to give us the power to conquer our own through His Gospel. 2f: Being found in appearance as a man Again, Creator becoming creature—possibly the greatest acts of humility we could ever imagine. 2g: He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Here’s the clincher. As if He wasn’t the perfect display of humility already, Christ in His humbled-Creator-becoming-creature-for-people-who-didn’t-want-Him self remains humble and obedient to His Father to the point of death, even the most excruciating form of capital punishment ever known. The cross sobers even the most irreverent agnostic. That a man would endure such catastrophic torture out of love for His Father and for His murderers is incomprehensible. It turns everything on its head in true Gospel style. Christ redefines emptiness by displaying mind-bending humility. Empting ourselves of our selfish desires is the only way we can be filled with the only thing that matters—the Gospel. Christ sacrificed everything to be obedient to the Father. It wasn’t comfortable, convenient, or fun. It was costly, detrimental, and required the greatest degree of pain imaginable. It was the Gospel—the ultimate sacrifice for depraved sinners who couldn’t do anything to save themselves. Gospel emptiness is getting out of the way so Christ can make His way into our lives. He desires to transform us into instruments for the Gospel, which requires Christ-sized humility. Getting full begins by becoming empty. Will you empty yourself as Christ did for the Gospel? One of my greatest fears is to look back on a wasted life. Investing my time, energy, and pursuits into endeavors that bear no eternal significance scares me to death (no pun intended). Imagine standing before Jesus and instead of being overwhelmed by His glory being overwhelmed with regret of not living for Him.
Not that He loves us less or more depending on what we do. But still. To know that we could’ve of been more for Him—could’ve touched more lives, invested in more relationships, shined His truth and light in more situations—you get the idea. But I guess the fear of a wasted life comes from a deeper fear of not loving Him enough—not seeing Him for who He truly is and living a life of worship in response. We get so side-tracked and distracted. We fall so quickly into routines and worldly aspirations that we neglect what’s true and enduring. Passions fade and dreams stint. Ruts of mundaneness creep into our lives until our lives are defined by them. Then we wake up and realize years drifted by without purpose or intentionality. This fear of not loving Him as I should also spurns a fear of complacency. American Christians get way too comfortable. Right now I’m sitting on a gorgeous deck overlooking a sparkling lake that held me up on skis earlier this afternoon. It’s not my house, but still I sense the temptation to make this one of life’s aspirations. After all, it’s an INCREDIBLE way to spend the day! Comfort is not sin. Nor is having fun. But it certainly paves the way for thinking that’s what life is all about. We’re not truly alive until we accept Christ. Christ didn’t come to make bad people better, but to make dead people alive (thanks Tullian :) ). But after that we go off course. Accepting Christ becomes a status to accumulate rather than a life to embrace through surrender. Becoming alive in Christ via the Gospel is a one-time experience positionally (meaning once we accept Him it’s a done deal once and for all). But it’s not a one-time experience practically. We must practically embrace the Gospel in our lives every day. We must breathe it in and live through its power by diving deeper into it. The Gospel must become our reason for living—the primary focus that consumes our lives. It should fill our lives until our lives align with it (which will never fully happen by the way, but we keep trying). Only when we’re immersed in the Gospel do we stand a chance to live intentionally for eternity. For our financial comrades, the Gospel is the only sure investment worth making in this life. It’s the only one that won’t let you down. It’s the only one that prevents us from falling prey to worldly distractions and keeps us madly in love with our Savior and Lord. The Gospel is both the propellant and fire that consumes our fears and grants us an eternal perspective in this temporary world. Living for the Gospel is the only guarantee we have not to live wasted lives. We can’t help but love Him with all our hearts when the Gospel is the center of our attention. Lord, consume me with Your Gospel until it’s the one pursuit my life invests in. It won’t be wasted if your Gospel reigns. Our lives consist of doing doing doing. In order to be something, culture tells us to “DO MORE!” “TRY HARDER!” “GET MORE!” and “DON’T HOLD BACK!” Society screams at us to follow OUR hearts and OUR dreams so WE can get to the top—regardless of how it impacts those around us.
Ironically, potholes of suicide, depression, broken families, and addictive behaviors line the paths of history. Men and women immensely successful in the world’s eyes suffer greater than children stricken with poverty in third world countries. But their suffering is internal. Over time they realize the world has lied to them. Monetary or fame success fails to give them relief—fails to soothe them with the peace, tranquility, and purpose they desperately crave. Sorry, but you’ve been lied to. Doing more, trying harder, getting famous and accumulating more stuff cannot satisfy. Those pursuits are earthly and temporal. Human beings are both physical and eternal. Treating an eternal issue with a physical treatment is like using a bandaid to cover a mortal wound. Doesn’t work. History proves it. Satisfaction, peace, a sense of worth and purpose are eternal issues. We can’t buy them at a grocery store, nor can we do more to accomplish them. Doing more results in accumulating more, but what we’re accumulating is frail and temporary. By the way, this applies to Christians too. Ever tried grocery shopping for peace, holiness and the antidotes of greed, selfishness, pride and lying alike? Maybe not literally, but we do figuratively all the time. Pastor says we need to stop lying, so what do we do? Try to stop lying. He says we need to have healthy marriages, so we take our spouses out to dinner and bring home roses more often. We need to address our greediness! We give more to the poor. What we’re dealing with here are fruit and root issues. Fruit issues are ones we see on the surface—the lying, cheating, selfishness and greedy behavior. Since these are the ones we see, we tend to deal with them directly. We try harder not to lie, cheat, be selfish or greedy. That’s like cutting a weed. Sure, it’ll help for a day or two, but it certainly doesn’t address the problem. The root issue of ALL our sin is idolatry—it’s trying to put someone or something in the place of Christ in our hearts and lives. We lie because we want others’ approval. Others’ opinions take priority over the approval of God we already have in Christ. Idolatry is manifested in millions of ways, but it is the root issue that needs to be treated. Doing more, trying harder, and accumulating stuff CANNOT deal with the root issue of idolatry in our lives. Doing, trying and accumulating actually FEEDS the root issue and makes it grow deeper! Not only is it not the antidote, it’s the fuel that makes the issue worse! The true antidote for the root problem of idolatry in our lives is the Gospel. Our compulsive efforts to do, try, and accumulate cease when we turn our eyes to what Jesus has DONE, ACCOMPLISHED, and ACCUMULATED on our behalf. His work of doing finished at the cross by who He was. He became sin and took on OUR punishment so we are declared innocent before God. He accomplished the mission He set out to do—making a way for us to enter God’s presence freely and without shame. He accumulated the blessings of God and imparted them to us. Jesus Christ did all, was all, accomplished all, and accumulated all SO WE DON’T HAVE TO. We couldn’t have even if we tried! We’re INCAPABLE of freeing or saving ourselves. Only Jesus is and only Jesus did. We’re free from doing because He already DID. We’re free to BE because of who Jesus IS. We’re free to give because Jesus GAVE. Jesus Christ is the antidote to our most fundamental chain of slavery, and it’s only in Him that we are set free. Keep your eyes on Him, and let Him transform your life of doing into the freedom to enjoy what He’s already DONE. Sleep. Necessary and wonderful, this little phenomenon wields power in all our lives. If we get too much of it, we become lazy and lethargic. Not enough and we’re moping around to the nearest caffeine pump. Some of us sleep to live; others live to sleep.
We do strange things in our sleep. Dreams and nightmares frequent our rest—minds engaged, yet resting ironically. Involuntary movement meanders its way into our nights as well. For some spouses, this leaves much to be desired. The occasional kick, right hook, smother-with-pillow move and others leave our spouses praying coma-like hibernation upon us. Others sleep-walk. This is a freakish oddity of some sleepers. To my knowledge, I’ve never been caught up in this quirk, but I know several who have. Operating as though awake—walking, dressing, opening doors, and talking--while being asleep??? Unnerving. Unfortunately, this is where many Christians camp in our faith. Oh we look alive and do everything to make sure others think so. We dress the part (no midriff or low tops, please!), do the do (church, check; devos, check; tithe, check), and talk the talk (“how ya doing, brother?” “God be with you, son”), but all the while, we’re asleep. Functioning as a Christian, yet consumed by a pit of slumber. Here’s a diagnostic questionnaire to gauge your faith awakeness: 1) When’s the last time you just sat and enjoyed the presence of God?
So how do we emerge from our slumber pits? There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that we can’t wake ourselves up. Just like we can’t save ourselves, pits of slumber cannot be broken from within. God has to reach down and wake us up to His glory. The only thing we bring to salvation is the sin that makes salvation necessary. Same concept with slumber pitness. The only contribution we make to our awakening is the reason we need it in the first place. The good news, however, is that God WANTS us to wake up! He doesn’t want us to be a sleep-walking Christians—functioning physically, but slumbering on the inside. He desires us to thrive—to be fueled and ready to take on the world for Christ. Awaking from our slumber pits ONLY happens when we: 1) Realize that we are, in fact, in slumber 2) Pray earnestly for Him to rescue us from our pit! That’s a prayer He will answer. Beg Him for it. Pray in accordance with 2 Thessalonians 1:11 We pray always that our God will count us worthy of our calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the work of faith with power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in us, and we in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. We exist for Him—to know Him and make Him known. That can’t happen if we’re sleeping! Time to wake up! No, there isn’t really a back corner in heaven. But if there was, that’s where I’d want to be. Not because I’m some social introvert (quite the opposite, actually), or because I don’t think there’ll be anything better to do. I’d want to be in the back corner because then I could watch other people getting to know Jesus the way I have—times a million.
Words are funny things. We use them in all sorts of ways and to accomplish all kinds of purposes. But when all is said and done, they’re really not adequate when describing certain things. Even the most talented literary author or speaker fails to deliver an experience with words alone. In the ends words are tools—messengers that take an audience where the author wants them to go. Having said that (no pun intended), describing my relationship with Jesus via words is but a small dim window into an exhilarating world. I’m not crazy. I have a relatively well-functioning mind that isn’t diagnosable (or so I think). Nor am I one of those hell, fire, and brimstone people whose life is plagued with fear and guilt that God will get me if I don’t shape up. Street corners with Jesus signs aren’t my second home, nor are all my conversations—even with the mailman—about Him. But I do love Him. I am, in fact, radically and completely obsessed with Him and His Gospel. I like to call “ecstasy on purpose”. Learning about or seeing Him work fuels an ecstasy within me that burns until I’ve spoken it to someone else. It’s compulsive. It flows off my tongue or through my typing fingers like a mountain brook carrying water down its crevassing slopes. That’s the “on purpose” part. Ecstasy about Jesus and for His truth is grand, but not if it remains in your own mind. Mail never does any good if it’s not sent! My goal is simple: To Know Him and Make Him Known. Since I’ve gripped the fact that knowing Him without hindrance won’t come until heaven, I not-so-patiently wrestle with the waiting. For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. I’m no Paul, but this passage burns as a reality in my life. I yearn to be with Jesus, knowing that the ecstasy I experience here is but a taste of what’s to come. Yet I know He chooses to keep me here a while longer, so I will serve Him as His vessel—hopefully leaving His fingerprints on every life I touch. The veil is torn. We now behold His glory in a mirror dimly, but in heaven we will see Him face-to-face. Until then, Lord, transform me into Your image from glory to glory. Reveal Yourself to others as You have to me. Reserve a spot in heaven (as well as on earth) to behold the face of someone seeing You intimately for the first time. Use me to keep that mirror, Daddy. Love You. Identity. A basic yet crucial aspect of life. Billions of dollars are spent every year appealing to our identities—from paying therapists to figure out who we are to paying doctors to transform the parts we don't like.
Some of us live our entire lives in an identity crisis. We’re always striving to improve our image physically, emotionally, and intellectually, in power, in status and in wealth. We push, sweat, starve ourselves, and make major sacrifices attempting to attain an invisible yet debilitating standard. We all want to be somebody and we all want everyone else to know we’re somebody. How does this desire flesh out with Christianity? According to the world, identity is measured by what you have and what you do. A doctor is a doctor because he graduated with the appropriate degree, interned at the appropriate length, and is employed by an appropriate institution. A doctor may also be a husband to his wife, a father to his children, and a friend in social circles. The better he performs in each of his roles, the more secure he feels in his identity (or so he hopes). A worldly sense of identity crumbles, however, because there will always be a better doctor, husband, father, and friend. Even if we put forth all our efforts into one role, there will always be someone better at it. There’ll always be someone prettier, thinner, more accomplished, smarter, and savvier than ourselves. When we realize that, we suffer an identity crisis. Identity crises happen when we attempt to find our identities in our roles and accomplishments instead of in Jesus. God did create us to fulfill certain roles. Adam had a job in Eden and a relational role as a husband before the fall. He even accomplished things! Fulfilling roles and succeeding in accomplishments is not sinful. But notice how neither his roles nor accomplishments made Adam who he was. Adam was Adam because of God and his relationship with Him. When we seek to find our identity in roles and accomplishments we’re really putting those roles and accomplishments in front of Jesus in our hearts. We’re seeking the approval of others based on our relational functions and successes instead of realizing we already have 100% approval by the only One who matters. When God saves us we’re given a new identity—one that’s found in and secured by Jesus. We don’t lose our personalities, get magically brilliant or become the Barbie and Ken version of ourselves; but we do become aligned with the One who identifies with the Father on our behalf. Remember, Jesus is the One who bridges the Great Divide. He became sin on our behalf and redeemed us from our identity crises. Only in Jesus do we 1) Realize why we’re here 2) Understand who we really are, and 3) Become the person God sees when He looks at us through Jesus. Jesus saves us from our identity crises by showing us what our true identity really is—sons and daughters of the King. Rescue from an identity crisis occurs only when we realize who we are in Jesus. The more we come to terms with who Heis and what He’s done for us, the more we discover our identities as His disciples. You see, it’s not really about whom we are or what we’ve done. It’s about who Jesus is and what He’s done on our behalf. ID yourself with Jesus first. Abide in Him and He’ll reveal your true identity. Satisfaction guaranteed! Americans adore freedom—we fight for it, argue about it, defend it and won’t let anyone stand in the way of realizing it. If there were a freedom flavor ice cream, it would be an instant hit! The premise of this country is freedom, and thousands of men and women risked their lives keeping it that way.
But what is freedom? What does it mean to be free? Like other abstract concepts, freedom can mean many things to many people. Since we’re fans of the truth, let’s take a look at what Scripture says about it: So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free…if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.’ This familiar passage reveals God’s heart regarding freedom. Let’s first take a look at what freedom is not. Then we’ll wrap our minds around what it is. Freedom is not the absence of rules. Many people erroneously believe that freedom arrives when rules leave. Rules and expectations hinder our inner freedom from being fully expressed. That line of thinking misses the mark entirely. We were created to abide by rules. Doesn’t sound fun, but it’s true. God created the universe and everything in it, including us. He brought order from chaos, time from timelessness, and a system from disorder. He gave everything a time, place, purpose and function. He established a rhythm for the universe and provided everyone with a role in it. Everything works best when it thrives in the order God designed it for. Chaos begins when people begin operating outside of the natural order. Freedom is not the absence of rules or regulations. God designed the entire universe to operate within the confines of rules and rhythms! We, as created beings, have no more right to pursue freedom outside our ordained confines than a car owner can tell its designer how he thinks it can best function. Freedom is not the absence of absolutes. Relative truth-ists (or so I call them) advocate no absolute truth exists—no right or wrong, only what people individually believe to be true. Under this logic, a man can attack and rape a young woman without consequence because it felt right to him. Enough said. Freedom is not the absence of rules or absolutes. True freedom is realized when we come to an understanding of who we are in the Gospel. Jesus reveals the recipe for freedom:
Continuing in His Word means to saturate ourselves in His truth. Think hot tub here—saturating yourself in the therapeutic water until your fingers turn pruny. The more we’re in the Word, the more His truth permeates our minds. The more our minds (intellectually and emotionally) are permeated, the more we find our identity in the truth via the Gospel. The greater or understanding of our identity in the Gospel, the freer we become. Freedom comes when we understand what we’re being freed from—death and slavery to sin. Rules and regulations aren’t enslaving; sin is. Christ died to free us from the one thing we could never free ourselves from. But He knew that telling it to us once wouldn’t make it a transforming reality in our lives. Hence the aforementioned recipe. CONTINUE in His Word, BE His disciple, KNOW/find your IDENTITY in the truth, and you will be SET FREE. Freedom is realizing practically who we are positionally in Jesus. In Jesus you’re as free as you could ever hope to be. Saturate yourself in His Word and ask Him to reveal daily who you are in Him. Be FREE. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
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