Some thoughts about being...

When we are saved we are Born. Again.

This means we are given a new nature.

That which we are has changed.

Unlike a physical child we are saddled with old habits, old emotions, old sorrows.

Much like a physical child we have to learn the right way to do everything.

Legalism, rules, flesh based behavior restraints, flesh based behavior constraints,
all of these may have an appearance of godliness, they may even feel more comfortable.

But they by their very nature are destined to lock us into immaturity.

They are straight jackets and training wheels. God wants free, soaring, shining children.

He wants us to BE who He made us to BE.

1st John 1:8-10
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins
and purify us from all unrighteousness.
If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

Once we are saved sin has no bearing on us, honesty before God does.

If we sin, if we are honest about it and turn from it to God,
we are freely forgiven and freely justified.

If we claim to be without sin, (perhaps sometimes because we are following the "rules"
as we have been taught and aren't even aware that we are sinning) we make God out to be a liar,
and make His word (the very thing that reveals our new, true, nature to us) of no (or lesser) effect.

Matthew 8:26+27
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

As Christians we should be like the birds of the air, flowers of the field.
We should just BE, we shouldn't be tied up in knots over tomorrow, nor bogged down in yesterday.
Instead of worrying about rules, rituals or doctrines, we should live our lives in love with God,
in the moment that is now, in all of His grace, in all of His gifts, in all of His love.
God will get through to us what we need to change in our habits in our thinking, if we are focused on Him and open to Him.

I am God's snotty nosed brat. And He loves it.
When I come to Him I run, I may not be clean, I may be disheveled, and I may not even be "pretty" but I am dearly loved, and recieved with grace.

The very first thing I want to do when I get to Heaven is hop in the Father's lap and give Him a hug.

Ephesians 2:10
For we are God's workmanship(Greek: Poema - A spoken work of art),
created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

All that I am that is good or praiseworthy are His doing, all of it is the nature He gave me when I was Born. Again.
All of it is His poema, His spoken word of art, His God-Breathed masterpiece, a tapestry of ideas and concepts revealing who I am.
A symphony of glory which He is perfecting within me.

When I "am" who I am, and when I love Him just where I am, He will finish the beautiful work He began in me.
I will BE whole, mature, complete, lacking nothing, and the perfect expression of Jesus.
I will BE this because it is who He made me to be. It is who I am, and who I am by nature destined to be.

And the more we discover who we ARE the more Christlike we will be.

Rules, judging ourselves against one another, legalism, all have a short term sense of success.
But in the end they are nothing but grave rags, just as much so as any other form of sin.
They are indeed sin, they place themselves between us and God, they replace His word with the ideas of man.
They hold back His beloved children, they forestall the manifestation of the Bride of Christ,
and they become stumbling blocks on our way to the wedding supper of the lamb.

Grace is 100% favor, 100% of the time, God is WITH us, God is FOR us, God is IN us and we in Him.
We have no need of layers between us and God, be they rules, rituals, "saints", or doctrines.

When we sin, God is right there with us, He is just a glance away, just a thought away, waiting to say:
"I love you, I believe in you, I am with you, I am for you, we will beat this TOGETHER, you will shine and make me smile."

God believes in you. He roots for you, more so than any fanatical parent at a child's sporting event.
And every time you achieve, every time you beat sin, every time you "get" something He shows you,
God cheers as if you won the world series, the Boston marathon, and the nobel prize all in one.

God IS love. What perfectly loving parent wouldn't rejoice over every accomplishment, no matter how seemingly insignificant to others, of their beloved child???

This Site Is Copyright (C) 2006 by Dan Sharpe. Unless otherwise marked, all scriptures are taken from the HOLY BIBLE,
NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.