This is a post I wrote a few months ago on a private blog, but the topic has recently come up in the discussions I've been having with other friends, so I thought I'd share it with all of you too! Here you go...
"This Wednesday in chapel, the speaker (Megan Fate Marshman) shared an incredible message with us, and I just want to share part of what she said with you...
Her main illustration was that of a married couple. The wife can't just run back to her parent's home and try to stay there every day, because she's a wife - she needs to be with her husband, in his home, loving and serving him. In the same way, we are already Christians... we're no longer sinners (like she is no longer single). We can't just keep running back to sin, because that's insane... we belong with Jesus. We are already together. Another point that struck me really deeply was 'Become who you already are.' As Christians, we are the daughters and sons of God. We are princes and princesses. We are holy, pure, blessed, forgiven, adopted, wanted, chosen, loved. How many of us actually live up to that truth? How many of us actually believe it? This is your identity. Become who you already are.
That struck me on a deep level because I've been living my life up to this point trying to live up to God's standards so that I can become who He wants me to be by the time I get to Heaven. It sounds stupid written out here (probably because it is), but I never actually sat down and thought about how dumb that was. God is eternal. He sees me in all stages of my existence; and eternity is now, anyway. It doesn't start when I die. So that means that from the moment I accepted Christ, God immediately changed His viewpoint and saw me... and sees me... as a perfect, complete, holy person. Yes, I am broken. Yes, I mess up. But I am still perfect in His present, which is my soon. It's like this blog - I am writing to you from the past, but I see it as the present, because I haven't caught up to you yet.This blog has given me a whole different perspective on time, and I think it's helped me to understand God a lot better through that. He's outside of this time frame... He calls all times soon. And I am already (though not yet) perfect. Always.
My prayer for you is that you'll see yourself this way too. That you'll be able to recognize that you don't have to try to become someone whom God loves, whom God can use, who is perfect and blameless. YOU ALREADY ARE. And I hope that truth affects you as much as it did me."
Great point. Back in 2010 before Swaziland, I was asking the same thing another missionary was asking "What does God want from me? What am I expected to do?" And I found my answer in Micah 6:8.
ReplyDelete"He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?"
There wasn't something great I was expected to do. God already set within me, who I am supposed to be. I was to live as the child of His I already am.
Thank you, Trisha.
Joshau
Thanks for bringing up that verse! That's a really great answer. That also reminds me of Ephesians 2:10 - God already prepared our paths, and all we have to do is "walk in them". What a reliving comfort!
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