The Central Message

Although my plan when I started a blog was to regularly keep blogging, I am back, almost one year later at the same place I started this. Still fighting to preach the gospel to myself daily. Although I think the Lord is constantly trying to teach us new lessons everyday, this is the central one He always wants us to come back to:

As a child of God, made new in His image-we have a NEW identity in Him, the old is gone, the new has come. And the new has come for good. We were all born as sinners, and I don’t believe anyone could argue against that. It doesn’t take a genius to look around the world and see that it is full of brokenness, due to human sin. We can look inside of our own hearts and see the brokenness, the pride, the selfishness, and evil. But, as Jesus becomes our Lord and Savior, He saves us from ourselves. He gives us a NEW heart, new desires and cleanses us-from the inside out. He took on our sins, every single one of them, and died for them. Romans 3:21-26.

I believe the reason I wrestle so much with this statement is because when I look at myself, with my own eyes, I see what I should be and what I could be but what I am not. I still see all my shortcomings, my failures, my pride, my lust, my greed, my insecurity, and the list goes on and on. On my own, I do not see myself as God sees me. But this is where the renewing of my mind must come in: we must pray to see ourselves as God sees us. And I don’t mean the kind of measly prayer, hoping, but not really believing that God will show us this. We must pray with ACTION-preaching to ourselves what the God-breathed scripture (2 Timothy 3:16; Matthew 5:17-18) says about us, as children of God. It says we are free from the chains of sin, it says we are pure, it says we are counted righteous through Christ, it says we are blameless, it says we can have confidence in Christ in us.

My daily struggle with preaching truth to myself daily comes with my own feelings and thoughts and sometimes even others feelings and thoughts telling me different things about myself. Telling me I am not good enough, telling me I need to try harder, urging me to focus on my failures and “do better”, “get it together.” And isn’t this what culture tells us? Our culture is saturated with counter-gospel messages. Beckoning me to find my identity in anything besides Jesus. For my current life, that would be: my career, my relationship status, my looks, my social circle, my achievements, etc.

I am learning that the fight of faith that we must prepare for is often putting off those feelings and thoughts that tell us our identity, righteousness and status is found in anything besides Jesus Christ. He died for this very reason. Me putting my worth and self-attempted righteousness in anything but Him is calling His death invalid, not enough, and therefore saying to God, my Creator and Maker, You aren’t big enough, powerful enough or graceful enough to cover my dirt. And although this is the way I feel so often, this is not truth. I must will myself to rest in the truth of the gospel. So, from one child of God to the next-I pray that you do this same! :)