August 14
Scripture focus: The Life-Light was the real thing: every person entering Life he brings into Light. He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn't even notice. He came to his own people, but they didn't want him. But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves. These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, not sex-begotten. John 1:9-13 (The Message)
As a young adult, I was more defined by my hurts, habits and hang-ups than my true, God-begotten self. In fairness to myself, I didn't realize that there was a true, God-begotten self within me. When this information was presented to me, I thought I had hit the big money jackpot. This wasn't just good news, it was awesome news. As a shame-inflamed, terminally unique feeling person who finds out there was more to me than my limitations was a huge deal.
But I struggled with some preconceived and definitely false notions about what it would mean to ask God to take care and control of my life. I feared it would mean that I would have to stop wearing make-up. Maybe if I drank the "kool-aid," I'd have to stop using my brain. What if God asked me to sell all my possessions and send the proceeds to poor hungry children in third world countries (not that there's anything wrong with that!)? I feared that it might mean that I'd have to learn how to love only Christian music and burn my Grateful Dead collection. Suffice it to say, I had a lot of crazy ideas about what it meant to become a Christian that made me question whether I really wanted to go all out in this believing in Jesus or just stand beside the pool hoping he'd come to me.
As I investigated – and this took quite awhile - I gradually began to catch glimpses of my true, God-created self. Hard knocks and heartbreak as well as moments of great joy mixed in with some life experience taught me that God's boundaries were far more liberating than limiting. I don't know how or when it happened, but I began to see that following God was not a troublesome task, but an epic adventure.
Every person who believes that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah, is God-begotten. If we love the One who conceives the child, we'll surely love the child who was conceived. The reality test on whether or not we love God's children is this: Do we love God? Do we keep his commands? The proof that we love God comes when we keep his commandments and they are not at all troublesome. 1 John 5:1-3 (The Message)
Healthy boundaries help us keep God's commands and allow us to discover true freedom in the process.
Recommended reading: 1 Kings 16-18
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