Do you know what finally gave me rest in God? The one thing that allowed me to abide in Him fully and gave me the courage to stand up for what I believe?
Fully understanding the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I have been a Christian for most of my life. It's been about 25 years now since God found me. And I didn't fully understand the Gospel until last year. 2011 was my biggest year for growth in my walk with the Lord. I publicly turned my back on a promising writing career and jumped in with both feet into the Gospel.
And the funny thing is -- I had no idea what God was teaching me. I was on a journey to get to know the God I only thought I knew. Scripture I'd read a thousand times before suddenly jumped out at me. A picture of what God intended for me to know began to coalesce. I asked the Holy Spirit to teach me. I asked Him to teach me how to love Him more. And after reading the book of Acts on my deck last summer, I closed the book in awe.
Acts has got to be one of my favorite books in the Bible. It shows timid men from Galilee, who fled from Christ's crucifixion in terror, becoming bold and fearless after the Spirit came down on Pentecost. After I read Acts with "new" eyes (because I'd read it before years earlier), I understood something new about the Apostles.
They were nothing like modern-day Christians.
There was a disconnect there. What was the deal? Well, they loved God more than ANYTHING in the world, and they weren't afraid to literally shout it from the rooftops. They were sure and bold in God. They knew their identity in Christ. They fully understood the Gospel.
After that, I asked God to help me love Him like the APOSTLES loved Him. Be careful what you wish for! God showed up in my life last summer like never before. And you know what? God Himself was teaching me all about the Gospel and I had no idea.
For decades I'd heard about the life and death of Jesus and His resurrection. I had the head-knowledge, but not the heart-knowledge.
God was showing me that He loved ME so much that Jesus came into the world to LIVE for me. His life was a gift, to give me the perfect record of a sinless life I could never accomplish on my own. He then died for me, separating me from my sins as far as the east is from the west. At the cross is where He became my sin and I became His righteousness. The Bible says I've been crucified with Christ, it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives through me. What does that mean? My old life is now dead and buried, and I am a new creation in Jesus.
But what really brought me to my knees throughout my entire journey to re-aquaint myself with God was the fact that I have God's approval, come what may. In realizing that Christ gave me His perfect record, I understood I have it NOW, not at some distant point in the future when I'm "good enough". I am covered by the blood of Jesus right now, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit as a promise of my future resurrection into my glorified body. That means the book in Heaven that has all my sins recorded was nailed to the cross. It no longer exists. Now, when God looks at the record of my life, He sees CHRIST'S record.
That's amazing!! Why? Because no matter where I came from, no matter what I've endured, no matter how many sins I've committed, there is NOTHING I can add or subtract from the work of Christ. He did it ALL for me. Not only did He live and die for me, but He gave me His righteousness. Right NOW!! Even if I stumble in my sins, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. The sin that made me stumble is never recorded in my book. Christ's record is MINE. ALWAYS. Not just for past sins, but for future ones as well.
What freed me to rest in my Divine acceptance was the knowledge that when God looks at me, He sees CHRIST. That means I not only have God's acceptance, but He smiles upon me.
THERE IS NO HIGHER STANDING WITH GOD THAN CHRIST!
And this means my salvation is absolutely, 100% SECURE. I do not have to repent-repent-repent in order to keep my ticket to Heaven. No, that's slavery, that's not living in the freedom of Christ! Repenting keeps us close to God since sin is rebellion against God, but once you're a Christian, NOTHING and NO ONE can pluck you out of God's hand, not even yourself. Therefore we, as believers, do not repent in order to clutch onto the slippery slope of our salvation, but rather to repair our relationship with Almighty God. ALL your sins were paid for by Christ, past, present, and future! That's why Christ lived a perfect life - in order to give you that perfect record before God.
If you're hearing a voice today that tells you God can't possibly love you, that you're such a sinful Christian - how can you get right with God when you have such ugliness in your past? If you're ashamed to come into His presence, if you don't think you're a "worthy" Christian, I want to tell you right now that's a LIE straight from the enemy. Rebuke it in Jesus' name!
If you're a TRUE Christian, blood-bought by Christ through His sacrifice on the cross, then you are ABSOLUTELY worthy because HE is worthy! You are loved because HE is loved! You are accepted because HE is accepted! Why? Because He gave us HIS RECORD!!
Our life is hidden in Christ. If God sees CHRIST'S life and HIS righteousness when He looks at us, if He remembers our sins no more because Christ paid our penalty in full, then we have the absolute acceptance of God Almighty, and we can rest in the knowledge that HIS acceptance is ALL WE NEED.
What worldly, vain acceptance could possibly compare...to that?
~~Becka
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Sunday, May 13, 2012
God Invented Me
Do you ever have a random thought that just kind of floors you? The, "Wow, that was really profound" kind of thought? I had one recently.
God invented me.
Now, we all talk about God being our Creator, but usually, we don't think much beyond God knitting our bodies together in our mother's womb. But what we don't stop and think about is the fact that God also created our souls, our very life. He knew from day one what our temperaments would be, what we'd like, what we wouldn't like. He knew what kind of dreams we would have and who our lives would touch.
God invented me.
Think about that for just a moment. Sparked within the mind of God was the idea of YOU. He always knew He'd create you. Who knows what was here before creation, but God knew you even then. In that way, His idea of you was always eternal. God has no beginning; we cannot fathom it, but an eternal God is eternal in both directions. Therefore, if He always knew He was going to create you, then you have always been on His mind.
We are a product of our own free wills, but who we are and who we ultimately become is straight from God's imagination. Just as He invented rocks and chlorophyll and oxygen and the color chartreuse, He invented you as well.
More than knowing your eye color, your hair color, or whether or not you'd have freckles, God wanted you to be exactly who you are. Where you are in life is no accident. He places us where we can shine the brightest for Him. He gives us our abilities to shine wherever we happen to be. The will of God for your life was known long before Genesis 1:1.
Whether a believer or a non-believer, we all belong to Him. There's no getting around it. Everyone was created by Him, every single person who's ever lived was invented by Him. He knows their thoughts and fears, their joys and their sorrows. We are, each of us, unique. Like fingerprints, each person God has invented is not like anyone else. God is one of a kind -- therefore so are we, made in His image to think, reason, and love.
It is both staggering and humbling at the same time to know there has never been a time in all of eternity that you were never planned for. Nothing is an accident to God. Whether or not your parents planned for you, God did.
He made your body and your soul. He made you YOU. The way you smile, your angry pout, that loud guffaw, that determination, your stubbornness, your easy-going-ness... All of it planned for, all of it finely tuned to be the person God wants you to be.
He is the Ultimate Inventor, the Master Crafter. His Imagination is infinite, and in eternity past, He imagined you, and knew He'd always create you to be you, because God's will is always done, on earth as it is in Heaven.
~~Becka
God invented me.
Now, we all talk about God being our Creator, but usually, we don't think much beyond God knitting our bodies together in our mother's womb. But what we don't stop and think about is the fact that God also created our souls, our very life. He knew from day one what our temperaments would be, what we'd like, what we wouldn't like. He knew what kind of dreams we would have and who our lives would touch.
God invented me.
Think about that for just a moment. Sparked within the mind of God was the idea of YOU. He always knew He'd create you. Who knows what was here before creation, but God knew you even then. In that way, His idea of you was always eternal. God has no beginning; we cannot fathom it, but an eternal God is eternal in both directions. Therefore, if He always knew He was going to create you, then you have always been on His mind.
We are a product of our own free wills, but who we are and who we ultimately become is straight from God's imagination. Just as He invented rocks and chlorophyll and oxygen and the color chartreuse, He invented you as well.
More than knowing your eye color, your hair color, or whether or not you'd have freckles, God wanted you to be exactly who you are. Where you are in life is no accident. He places us where we can shine the brightest for Him. He gives us our abilities to shine wherever we happen to be. The will of God for your life was known long before Genesis 1:1.
Whether a believer or a non-believer, we all belong to Him. There's no getting around it. Everyone was created by Him, every single person who's ever lived was invented by Him. He knows their thoughts and fears, their joys and their sorrows. We are, each of us, unique. Like fingerprints, each person God has invented is not like anyone else. God is one of a kind -- therefore so are we, made in His image to think, reason, and love.
It is both staggering and humbling at the same time to know there has never been a time in all of eternity that you were never planned for. Nothing is an accident to God. Whether or not your parents planned for you, God did.
He made your body and your soul. He made you YOU. The way you smile, your angry pout, that loud guffaw, that determination, your stubbornness, your easy-going-ness... All of it planned for, all of it finely tuned to be the person God wants you to be.
He is the Ultimate Inventor, the Master Crafter. His Imagination is infinite, and in eternity past, He imagined you, and knew He'd always create you to be you, because God's will is always done, on earth as it is in Heaven.
~~Becka
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