Well, it's been a year since I posted here. Not sure really where else I can go with that, except that I'm ready to start pouring my life out again. For me, not throwing myself out there leaves me to have only myself to hold me accountable and that never really ends well. So because I truly believe that we were created for community by God, to know and be know, here's my attempt at being known again.
To say that I struggle recovering from religion would be an understatement. It's like it's so beat into my head that I can't get past it. Especially the part that says that my works justify me. It makes it all about me and what I did or what I look like or how good I am at some thing that makes me feel accepted. A huge struggle for me, and all us really if we're being honest, is truly finding our identity in Christ. Finding that the only thing that matters is what we look like to Him. If we ever grasp, I mean truly grasp, how wretched we are and how Christ gladly died for us then maybe we would come to see how we are viewed by Him as His children.
For me, it's tough to not seek my identity in the things that I can do. They are tangible. I am a good designer, I can see my product every day. I am a good husband, a good father, I work on computers well, I cook well, etc....and I take pride in those things. They become idols in my life, or really just things that point to the real idol of myself.
I've been thinking about Peter a lot lately. We read in Galations 2 where Paul opposed Peter because he acted a certain way around the gentiles and another way in front of the Jews. He valued their opinion of himself. We see in his denial of Christ how other peoples view of him mattered more than Christ at the time.
But, we also read about Peter's immense love for Jesus. He was one of the three disciples closest to Jesus. He walked with Jesus for 3 years and ultimately died a martyr's death upside down on a cross because he felt he wasn't worthy to die the same way Jesus did.
The point being that in my life, I tend to pull a Peter. I love Jesus, truly and dearly and want to know him more and more. I look forward to the day I finally come face to face with my redeemer. But despite my love for him, I slip and fall on this anti-gospel that says that my works (and self image) are good enough.
Here's what my hope hinges on and what I've been thankfully praying through lately.
Ephesians 2: 1-10
1And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
But God.....very thankful for those two words especially.
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