Seeing Ourselves Through the Lens of Jesus

Today we’re introducing you to the blog at Annville, Pennsylvania’s Bridge Faith Community, the author of this devotional is Pastor Chad Slabach. Click the title below to read this where it appeared there; then explore other items on the site.

Not Better…

“I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.” Rom. 12:3 MSG

This is from the Eugene Peterson’s Message translation, and before we go one step further, let’s just take a quick second to think about what a gigantic undertaking it would be to write your own translation of the Bible!!! He’s writing his own translation of the Bible, and for me, some days the sink is so full of dishes, it’s hard to know where to start.

Anyway. Romans 12 begins with offering ourselves, our bodies, as a living sacrifice, not conforming to the world but being transformed by the renewing of our minds, then moving into “understanding ourselves.”

I have been sitting for the last few months thinking on the universal struggle between pleasing people and pleasing God, or just how big the audience is: either One or a million. The crazy thing with this ‘pleasing’ confusion is that it always circles back to that old familiar space, where I am “not good enough.” If the thing I want most is to please my neighbor and my boys and the Angel and you and the guy next to me at the gym and the driver in the car next to me and on and on, at some point, I won’t and then I’m forced to face the shocking fact that I am not, in fact, perfect at all. And if I’m not perfect, if I let them (anyone) down, if I am not good enough, then what am I? What is my value? What am I worth?

That’s when the rotten tapes begin to roll, deafening in my head, like they have a billion times before, with the answers. “You are worthless. You are nothing, pathetic. You will never be enough. (Repeat with different words, examples, tones, different levels of urgency.)” These answers very nearly irreparably broke middle school me. I still hear them from time to time, the difference is that I now see them as the lies they are. But if they aren’t true, then what is?

The NIV states verse 3 as: “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” It was that “but rather think of yourself as…” that hooked me and kept me from thinking of anything else.

How am I to think of myself? That is exactly the question. The verse begins, “not too highly,” and that’s not a problem usually. Maybe some of us fight that battle, but mostly, I think we remain mired in the sludge of contempt. (I do recognize that this is another facet of idolatry – to think that we are the exception to God’s love/redemption/acceptance is awfully arrogant. Different sides of the same ugly coin.) But to be honest, I don’t understand the rest of the verse. I immediately thought it meant that maybe we should think of ourselves the way God does – but is that actually what this verse says?

That’s how I found myself in the Message, and as it turns out, I was sort of right. Generally, I think that is exactly how we should see that beautiful child of God in the mirror.

But this verse says, “by what God is and what He does for us.” As if we are covered with His skin, and it is no longer possible to see ourselves without the lens of Jesus Christ. And if we follow this line of thinking, we arrive at a surprising destination where all of the questions we’ve been asking have done nothing but prove how misguided we’ve been.

Is our goal to please God or to please our co-workers?

Either way, we then “misinterpret ourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God,” seeing ourselves as “what we are and what we do for Him.”

The passage continues with a cool body analogy, where we bring our gifts to the table for Our God and each other – and why? Because we have been set free from all of our have-to’s, all of our questions, where all that’s left is Him and His infinite grace. We are His and they are His gifts with which to bless us all.

Asking questions about worth and value, wasting time on perfection, seems to just keep us trapped in the old skins that simply don’t fit anymore. We are not better, we’re brand new.

Patterns in the Revelation Church Letters

^{Rev. 1:4} John,

To the seven churches in the province of Asia:

Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, ⁵ and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, ⁶ and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.

⁷ “Look, he is coming with the clouds,”
    and “every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him”;
    and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.”
So shall it be! Amen.

⁸ “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Today’s reading is from the website Blogos which features a variety of writers. Today we’re presenting a post by Laurel J. Davis:

(Click the title to read at source)

Are You Listening?

What does the word of the Lord mean to you? Are you hearing the Lord? Are you listening? Are you allowing His Word to minister in your life? To lead you? To uplift you? To correct you? To guide you into all truth?

In the Book of Revelation Chapters 2 and 3, John records the Lord Jesus’ individual messages to seven churches — Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. Four key statements appear in all seven messages that should make us in the Christian church today stop and really listen to the voice of God:

1. These are the words of Him who…: Every message to the seven churches starts with this phrase, and then goes on to attest to Jesus’ status as Almighty God — His power, His authority, His infinite nature, His marvelous glory, etc.

The message to today’s church is: Remember who and what God is. When He speaks, remember His power and authority over all of creation – including you. Meditate on His awesomeness. Rest in His faithfulness and truth, remembering that it is impossible for Him to lie. When God speaks to you — to your heart and mind in compatibility with His Word — remember that He holds your very life and breath in His hands.

2. I know your works [or, deeds]… : That’s the next thing Jesus says to every church. As the One with all power, authority, glory, faithfulness and truth, Jesus is omniscient. He knows all things. There is nothing hidden from His sight — not what you do, and also not why you do it. He is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart just as much as He sees all of your actions, both good and bad.

So, when Jesus speaks to you, be encouraged to know your good deeds have not gone unnoticed. You will be rewarded in due time. Know too that He wants to bring your bad deeds to your attention so that you can seek His forgiveness, repent, grow and ultimately overcome.

3. He who has an ear to hear, let him hear: After telling each church what their works, good and/or bad, have been, Jesus punctuates it with an exhortation to really get what He is saying. Do you have an ear to hear what God is saying to you? Enough to get it and do it? Are you a doer of what He’s saying, or just a hearer only?

Almighty God, who holds all power, authority and truth, and whose glory is unmatched, and who knows all things – does He have your ear? Are you willing to listen and then be accountable to follow through? We all get tempted to turn a deaf ear to the Lord sometimes, especially with the tough stuff. But think about those people who don’t have an ear to hear? What is it about them that let’s you know they don’t? Don’t be like them.

4. He who overcomes…: Jesus closes His individual messages to the churches with a promise for those who do have an ear to hear and who correct their deeds accordingly. Blessing comes with staying the course God has set before you and accepting His correction if you get off track along the way. Sometimes that blessing may not come right away, or even in this lifetime, but it is a promise nonetheless and will come to pass because it comes from the One who is all-powerful, all-knowing, deserving of all glory, and most faithful and true.

 

The words to the four churches of Revelation should make Christians stop and listen.

So, stick with Jesus. Hunger for His authority in your life. Receive His Word in your heart and endeavor to live honestly by it. Be assured of your reward. Listen to His voice (as expressed in His Holy Word) and heed it. For in Jesus Christ alone, you can overcome.

Given a New Name

This is from a blog,  Into The Foolishness and appeared earlier this year as A White Stone and a New Name.

One of the things I find beautiful in the book of Revelation is when Jesus says,

“To him who overcomes I will give a white stone and on that stone is a name known only to the person who receives it and to Me” (2:17).

The white stone signifies victory and could very well hint at purity. The significant thing to me is there is a name on that stone that is the name Jesus knows me by. My mother does not know me by that name. My friends don’t know me by that name. No one in this world, including myself, knows who I really am. I think that when we see ourselves in the light of Jesus, which will only happen when we give up ourselves and begin to seek Him wholeheartedly, then we will eventually grow into the person that He meant for us to be. When we see our name on that stone we’ll say, “Wow, thats me! How did You know me when I couldn’t even know myself?” For me, that’s part of the goal of spiritual maturity.”

~Rich Mullins

This verse in Revelation is one of the most intriguing and beautiful passages in all the Bible for me, and one of the most mysterious. A white stone with a new name? One that is uniquely ours that no one understands but God and myself? To think that God knows me in a way I don’t even know myself and will reveal that identity to me one day gives me goosebumps. Whenever I read this passage I think “I want to know what my stone says!” Imagine your most true self summed up in a name and handed to you by Christ Himself. It staggers the imagination.

For the time being, we are citizens of a fallen world, but it doesn’t change who we are. We all have a true self that God created us to be. We strive and work to become better people in many ways, but I think growing into who God actually made us to be is one of the holiest things we can do. It’s not about becoming perfect or working harder – it’s about embracing our weaknesses and faults and handing them all over to a God who knows us better than we know ourselves. What if we stopped trying be so many different people and focused on discovering more about our unique calling?

We have an identity in Christ that is unique. This should be an encouragement to all of us to seek only His will for our lives and let everything else fall to the wayside.

I actually like that no one is able to figure out the exact meaning of this passage. There is an excitement and wonder in it that should make us long for the truth of who we are in Christ. We get a taste of it here on earth and see the fulfillment of it in heaven. For now it is, as CS Lewis once wrote, “the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” 

I try and instill in my kids that they need to be who God has made them to be, no more and no less. I need to remember that myself. Find your identity in Christ and you won’t need to find it anywhere else.

“To him who overcomes I will give a white stone…”  What an unbelievable gift!