We know that apart from Christ we were nothing. Unfortunately it seems to me as if sometimes we Christians stay stuck right there. "We are nothing."
But ohhhhhhhh, my friends, in Christ we are a lot of wonderful things! Who God has made us to be is far more amazing than what we give Him credit for. God doesn't just mercifully "see" us a certain way just because we believe in Christ, but He has in reality made us to be a brand new creation, ALIVE with Him, joined to Him, complete in Him, fully accepted in Christ!
And just to get this straight, I'm not talking about that person sitting down there in the front row with his five-inch-thick King James Bible, who doesn't watch TV or go to movies and doesn't curse or smoke or drink or have an evil thought pop into his mind. I'm not talking about the person who is in church every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening, and whenever else the doors are open. I'm not talking about the person who never messes up and who never hurts anyone and who never says the wrong things. I'm not talking about the person who is completely consistent in everything he says and does. I'm not talking about the person who is happy all the time and never gets sad or depressed or irritated. I'm not talking about that Christian couple who say they never argue or fight. I'm not talking about the person whose "well worn Bible is a sign that they are not." I'm not talking about the person who takes part in all the activities at church. I'm not talking about the person who wears the Jesus pin and who has 3 Christian bumper stickers on his vehicle and listens only to Christian music. I'm not talking about the person who is able to connect with people easily and who knows all their neighbors. I'm not talking about the "10% who are doing 90% of the work." I'm not talking about the person who has no addictions or complexions or personality issues.
I think this might start to give a picture of who I'm not talking about!
Who I'm talking about is... YOU!
Who are you? I gleaned all of the following truths about you directly from Bible passages.
You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, God's own special people. You once were not a people but are now the people of God. Jesus has made you kings and priests to His God and Father. You are loved by the Father. The love of God has been poured out in your heart by the Holy Spirit who was given to you. You belong to God and He belongs to you. You are the beloved of God. You are your Beloved's and He is yours, and His desire is toward you. You are a saint.
You have been saved by Christ's life. You have been made alive together with Him. Christ is your life. You reign in life through Him. You have been sanctified in Him. You are the temple of God in which the Spirit of God indwells. Christ is in you. You are a holy temple of God. You are Christ's house. Inwardly, you are being renewed day by day.
Your sins have not only been forgiven; they have been taken away. You are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. You are holy and blameless before Him. You have been perfected forever. You have been brought near to God by the blood of Christ. In Christ you approach God with freedom, boldness and confidence. You were bought with a price. You are a citizen of heaven, and you are seated with Christ in the heavenly realm.
You are a new creation. He has given you a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. You have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the word of God which lives and abides forever. You are shielded by God's power.
You are a child of God... an actual child of God... through faith in Christ Jesus. As a legitimate child, you are qualified to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. You have been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God's beloved Son.
The Holy Spirit has been poured out abundantly on you through Jesus Christ. Having been justified by God's grace, you have become an heir according to the hope of eternal life. You have become an heir of God and a co-heir with Christ. You have become a partaker of Christ. You have become a partaker of the divine nature. You have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ. You have been united with God, joined to Him in an inseparable union.
Having been justified by faith, you have peace with God. You are accepted in the Beloved. You are complete in Him. You are no longer condemned and nothing can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. You are a branch of the living Vine, and His life flows through you. God rejoices over you with gladness. He quiets you with His love. He rejoices over you with singing.
All of these things are true of YOU because God says they are true of you! You may "feel" that it's true or you may not feel that it's true. You may understand all of it or some of it or very little of it, but it's still all true.
The point here is that you are not low. You are not a worm. You are not "nothing." You are all the things that are mentioned in the previous paragraphs, and you are much more that I haven't mentioned. I'm only skimming the surface!
Again, we know we were nothing apart from Christ. But now we are in Him and He is in us and we are His! We belong to Him. We're no longer nothing. Our lives in Him are not a matter of us trying to become something! We are complete in Him. We don't come groveling towards Him. We come boldly and confidently to Him, not afraid but with great awe and reverence. We don't sit around as a bunch of mere sinners, hoping He'll grant us favor with Him. We roll around and jump up and down in His favor and grace that has been lavishly poured out on us and given to us in abundance. We celebrate who we are in Him. We can fully enjoy the true identity that is truly who we are. WE DON'T DOWNPLAY IT!!!
I'm excited, I know! For a few years now I've been working my way of the box that I had previously been locked up in, in which the church had tried to tame me and to make me into someone who strives to be a "good Christian boy." :) I don't believe that that's what God had in mind for me when He saved me. He made me to be so much more than that! He has made me whole, and I want to live in that wholeness. He is a God who is "wild, dangerous, unfettered and free" (Walter Brueggeman) and I want to enjoy Him as He is and I want to live as who I am in Him!
Grace Roots Blog
Showing posts with label my identity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my identity. Show all posts
Monday, March 31, 2008
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Kings of the Wild Frontier
(I've been wanting to share this for a long time. I do not apologize for the length of this post. :) God's creation is vast, to an extent that is unimaginable. We are part of that creation, and our lives are meant for so much more than a daily struggle to "live right." --- As of today (2/1/07), I have the song mentioned here as my song on myspace. That is subject to change, but I do also have a video for the song there, and that will be there for a while).
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I feel beneath the white
There is a redskin
Suffering
From centuries of taming
I first heard the song “Kings of the Wild Frontier” by Adam and the Ants about 25 to 30 years ago! I was probably about 10 years old. I’ve been a huge Ant fan ever since. (I don’t believe I admitted that!). Well, I was a boy living in England at the time, and the Ants were popular!
There’s never really been anything about “Antmusic” lyrics that turned me on. In fact, I really don’t understand the lyrics most of the time! And when I do understand the lyrics, it’s often a little too… sensual… for my tastes. But I really dig the sound! There’s something about the way the music and vocals are arranged that really gets into my soul like no other music does. And that’s why I listen to it.
But a year or two ago I was listening to ‘Kings of the Wild Frontier,’ and there was something in the lyrics that suddenly did made sense to me, and it really HIT ME right where I was. It was an amazing time. Lots of pent up frustration was released as God spoke to my heart about my true identity through this song, and He set me free.
In the song, it’s as if Adam is saying that beneath his modern day white man’s skin, there’s an Indian Warrior hidden deep inside, dying to get out, but yet he suffers because he’s been tamed by many years of white man’s culture (some of the early Pirate/Indian/Warrior imagery and music style of the Ants came under the direction of their manager). For years, I'd really had no clue what the song was saying. :) But on this day, it all became crystal clear to me as God was revealing the identity inside of ME that has been suffering because of the culture in which I live.
The culture that I’m speaking of is today’s Church culture.
Let me back up, and get a bit personal, just for a moment. About 2 1/2 years ago, my wife and I had some marital problems. I had been having some doubts about my love for my wife. I won’t get into all the details, but I’ll say that we ended up seeing a counselor. He was great. He listened, and asked questions, and listened some more, and asked more questions. This is truly, truly a very, very condensed version of the story, but the main thing is what the counselor revealed to me about myself.
My problem was not that I didn’t love my wife. I really did (and still do, very much) love my wife. But in trying to be all that I could be as a “good Christian husband,” I wasn’t being the man that God had really wired me to be – who He had truly made me to be as a New Creation (2 Cor. 5:17). If you listen to (or watch) much of today’s Christian media, or go into many of today’s evangelical churches, so much of it is focused on self-improvement, being a better person (being a better spouse, parent, child, coworker, etc), striving to “do” all the do’s and “don’t” all the don’ts.
Many people think that if we can just get our behavior in line, then life will be better. Maybe you don’t disagree with that statement! But I found that the more I tried to get my behavior in line (for example – to be a better husband), the more I felt like a failure because I just couldn’t live up to it! Believe me, I tried for years and it was a roller coaster ride of success and failure, but mostly the ongoing nagging feeling that I just couldn’t do it. I don’t need to go into great detail here. Either you relate to this or you have the Christian life down pat. :) But here’s a personal example: I would be in bed, or driving somewhere, or listening to a sermon or Christian talk radio, thinking and praying about something that I really wanted to change in my life. And I would get all excited as I thought about how I would go about making this change. But then came real life… and the failure to change… and then guilt, despondency, and the feeling that I would never change. It was a vicious circle… a roller coaster ride as I said.
And the thing is… for 12 years now, I’ve been growing in my understanding of living by God’s grace – not my own efforts to change, but His work in me, which is sufficient. “We are His workmanship” (Eph 2:10). “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). “He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it” (1 Thes. 5:23). “For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil 2:13).
New Covenant life is about counting our self-efforts at pleasing God as dung (rubbish) (see Phil 3:3-11). I know this. I can tell others about it. And for the most part, I live it. Rather than trying to establish MY life (in the flesh) as one that is pleasing to God, I have let go and I live my daily life by faith, trusting in Him to do anything and everything in me and through me by His own doing. If you just let go, and put your trust in Him and not your own efforts, you will see that He is completely faithful to work the works in you and make the changes in you that He wants to.
Think about it… if we are God’s workmanship, and yet we try to make our lives out to be our own workmanship, even if we think we’re doing it “for” God… we are really making ourselves out to be GOD.
And so my problem is… sometimes I try to be God. In my marriage, I was trying to be God. I sincerely wanted to be a "better husband," but instead of letting Him work His wonderful works in me, in His way and in His timing, I was trying to do it. In a sense, I was really just going through the motions of being a good husband. It may have even had a great outward appearance from time to time! But on the inside, I knew I was FAKING it. My “good” efforts to be a better husband were really a work of the flesh. They weren’t coming from my union with God. I had sincere desires, but the efforts were not of God.
And so… I began to think that I didn’t love my wife. All my best efforts, as I said, were just me “faking” it. What I came to find out is that I was faking holiness. I just didn’t realize it at the time. But anytime you try to be holy or righteous by your own efforts, you are FAKING the real thing. The “real thing” is God’s workmanship, His life in union with ours. Our flesh can't compete with that! And our spirit knows it, but our flesh still wants to try. So, what I was confused about was this: how could I have such sincere desires to please my wife, and yet all my efforts were making me fall flat on my face? This confusion led me to think that I didn’t love her.
But this low point in our marriage led to a great discovery that would forever change us! We saw the counselor together one time, and then we saw him individually. In my time with him, as I said, he asked a lot of questions and really listened to me. And then he told me what he thought. He said quite a bit, and it was all great stuff, but only one word stuck out to me. Here is what he said: “Blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah IDENTITY blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. :) (The "blah blah's" aren't meant to discount or demean the other great things that were said; only to emphasize the importance of the one word).
The whole problem was that rather than living out of my true Identity in Christ… the New Creation that I truly am… I was trying to be all the things that I thought I was supposed to be for my wife. Again, you may not have much to disagree with about that method of living! Why shouldn’t I try to be the best spouse I can be? The reason is that I (my flesh) can't! The key to everything here is that if you let go, and if you find out who you really are – your true identity in Christ – you won’t have to fake anything. You won’t have to “fake it till you make it.” You won’t have to “try” to be a better spouse (or a better Christian) because God is faithfully at work in you all the time, and He will work the works in you, as He pleases, to make your outside behavior match the New Creation (your identity) that you already are.
I believe the reason there are so many dysfunctional Christians out there is not because we’re failing to get our acts together and start living right. It’s because we are trying to get our acts together and start living right!
My counselor recommended the book “Wild at Heart” by John Eldredge, which I didn’t actually start reading until about a year ago. For the sake of the fact that this is already long, I’ll just say that the gist of the book (at least to me), is getting out of our small, metal, inflexible, rigid, religious boxes that we’ve place ourselves (and God) into… and getting out into God’s world and being who HE created us to be! It's an understatement to call God "wild." Just look at His creation. And look at yourself - created in His image.
Today’s Christian culture has created a lot of these small religious boxes for people - and has kept them from experiencing the fullness of who God created them to be. You don’t know the freedom I experienced when I finally broke free from my little box! “I feel beneath the white there is a redskin suffering from centuries of taming.” I know that the core of who I am – my spirit – has always been longing to get out and to be who it is created to be! My counselor put that in perspective for me 2 1/2 years ago. And then that day – the day I heard those Adam and the Ants lyrics for the thousandth time – my heart cried out to God as the truth hit me in such a way that I knew I could never, ever get inside that box again!
Popeye put it this way: “I am what I am and that’s all that I am.” And God’s word tells us that all that we are is a truly wonderful creation – a work of God that can’t be kept in a religious box and that can never be faked!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I feel beneath the white
There is a redskin
Suffering
From centuries of taming
I first heard the song “Kings of the Wild Frontier” by Adam and the Ants about 25 to 30 years ago! I was probably about 10 years old. I’ve been a huge Ant fan ever since. (I don’t believe I admitted that!). Well, I was a boy living in England at the time, and the Ants were popular!
There’s never really been anything about “Antmusic” lyrics that turned me on. In fact, I really don’t understand the lyrics most of the time! And when I do understand the lyrics, it’s often a little too… sensual… for my tastes. But I really dig the sound! There’s something about the way the music and vocals are arranged that really gets into my soul like no other music does. And that’s why I listen to it.
But a year or two ago I was listening to ‘Kings of the Wild Frontier,’ and there was something in the lyrics that suddenly did made sense to me, and it really HIT ME right where I was. It was an amazing time. Lots of pent up frustration was released as God spoke to my heart about my true identity through this song, and He set me free.
In the song, it’s as if Adam is saying that beneath his modern day white man’s skin, there’s an Indian Warrior hidden deep inside, dying to get out, but yet he suffers because he’s been tamed by many years of white man’s culture (some of the early Pirate/Indian/Warrior imagery and music style of the Ants came under the direction of their manager). For years, I'd really had no clue what the song was saying. :) But on this day, it all became crystal clear to me as God was revealing the identity inside of ME that has been suffering because of the culture in which I live.
The culture that I’m speaking of is today’s Church culture.
Let me back up, and get a bit personal, just for a moment. About 2 1/2 years ago, my wife and I had some marital problems. I had been having some doubts about my love for my wife. I won’t get into all the details, but I’ll say that we ended up seeing a counselor. He was great. He listened, and asked questions, and listened some more, and asked more questions. This is truly, truly a very, very condensed version of the story, but the main thing is what the counselor revealed to me about myself.
My problem was not that I didn’t love my wife. I really did (and still do, very much) love my wife. But in trying to be all that I could be as a “good Christian husband,” I wasn’t being the man that God had really wired me to be – who He had truly made me to be as a New Creation (2 Cor. 5:17). If you listen to (or watch) much of today’s Christian media, or go into many of today’s evangelical churches, so much of it is focused on self-improvement, being a better person (being a better spouse, parent, child, coworker, etc), striving to “do” all the do’s and “don’t” all the don’ts.
Many people think that if we can just get our behavior in line, then life will be better. Maybe you don’t disagree with that statement! But I found that the more I tried to get my behavior in line (for example – to be a better husband), the more I felt like a failure because I just couldn’t live up to it! Believe me, I tried for years and it was a roller coaster ride of success and failure, but mostly the ongoing nagging feeling that I just couldn’t do it. I don’t need to go into great detail here. Either you relate to this or you have the Christian life down pat. :) But here’s a personal example: I would be in bed, or driving somewhere, or listening to a sermon or Christian talk radio, thinking and praying about something that I really wanted to change in my life. And I would get all excited as I thought about how I would go about making this change. But then came real life… and the failure to change… and then guilt, despondency, and the feeling that I would never change. It was a vicious circle… a roller coaster ride as I said.
And the thing is… for 12 years now, I’ve been growing in my understanding of living by God’s grace – not my own efforts to change, but His work in me, which is sufficient. “We are His workmanship” (Eph 2:10). “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). “He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it” (1 Thes. 5:23). “For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil 2:13).
New Covenant life is about counting our self-efforts at pleasing God as dung (rubbish) (see Phil 3:3-11). I know this. I can tell others about it. And for the most part, I live it. Rather than trying to establish MY life (in the flesh) as one that is pleasing to God, I have let go and I live my daily life by faith, trusting in Him to do anything and everything in me and through me by His own doing. If you just let go, and put your trust in Him and not your own efforts, you will see that He is completely faithful to work the works in you and make the changes in you that He wants to.
Think about it… if we are God’s workmanship, and yet we try to make our lives out to be our own workmanship, even if we think we’re doing it “for” God… we are really making ourselves out to be GOD.
And so my problem is… sometimes I try to be God. In my marriage, I was trying to be God. I sincerely wanted to be a "better husband," but instead of letting Him work His wonderful works in me, in His way and in His timing, I was trying to do it. In a sense, I was really just going through the motions of being a good husband. It may have even had a great outward appearance from time to time! But on the inside, I knew I was FAKING it. My “good” efforts to be a better husband were really a work of the flesh. They weren’t coming from my union with God. I had sincere desires, but the efforts were not of God.
And so… I began to think that I didn’t love my wife. All my best efforts, as I said, were just me “faking” it. What I came to find out is that I was faking holiness. I just didn’t realize it at the time. But anytime you try to be holy or righteous by your own efforts, you are FAKING the real thing. The “real thing” is God’s workmanship, His life in union with ours. Our flesh can't compete with that! And our spirit knows it, but our flesh still wants to try. So, what I was confused about was this: how could I have such sincere desires to please my wife, and yet all my efforts were making me fall flat on my face? This confusion led me to think that I didn’t love her.
But this low point in our marriage led to a great discovery that would forever change us! We saw the counselor together one time, and then we saw him individually. In my time with him, as I said, he asked a lot of questions and really listened to me. And then he told me what he thought. He said quite a bit, and it was all great stuff, but only one word stuck out to me. Here is what he said: “Blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah IDENTITY blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. :) (The "blah blah's" aren't meant to discount or demean the other great things that were said; only to emphasize the importance of the one word).
The whole problem was that rather than living out of my true Identity in Christ… the New Creation that I truly am… I was trying to be all the things that I thought I was supposed to be for my wife. Again, you may not have much to disagree with about that method of living! Why shouldn’t I try to be the best spouse I can be? The reason is that I (my flesh) can't! The key to everything here is that if you let go, and if you find out who you really are – your true identity in Christ – you won’t have to fake anything. You won’t have to “fake it till you make it.” You won’t have to “try” to be a better spouse (or a better Christian) because God is faithfully at work in you all the time, and He will work the works in you, as He pleases, to make your outside behavior match the New Creation (your identity) that you already are.
I believe the reason there are so many dysfunctional Christians out there is not because we’re failing to get our acts together and start living right. It’s because we are trying to get our acts together and start living right!
My counselor recommended the book “Wild at Heart” by John Eldredge, which I didn’t actually start reading until about a year ago. For the sake of the fact that this is already long, I’ll just say that the gist of the book (at least to me), is getting out of our small, metal, inflexible, rigid, religious boxes that we’ve place ourselves (and God) into… and getting out into God’s world and being who HE created us to be! It's an understatement to call God "wild." Just look at His creation. And look at yourself - created in His image.
Today’s Christian culture has created a lot of these small religious boxes for people - and has kept them from experiencing the fullness of who God created them to be. You don’t know the freedom I experienced when I finally broke free from my little box! “I feel beneath the white there is a redskin suffering from centuries of taming.” I know that the core of who I am – my spirit – has always been longing to get out and to be who it is created to be! My counselor put that in perspective for me 2 1/2 years ago. And then that day – the day I heard those Adam and the Ants lyrics for the thousandth time – my heart cried out to God as the truth hit me in such a way that I knew I could never, ever get inside that box again!
Popeye put it this way: “I am what I am and that’s all that I am.” And God’s word tells us that all that we are is a truly wonderful creation – a work of God that can’t be kept in a religious box and that can never be faked!
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