In general, selfies tell a false story about us. They’re just a moment captured, not the whole picture. They’re misleading. Who we see in the mirror isn’t what others see. They’re as good as we want them to be. We can re-take them until we get it perfect. (not that I would know)
The Bible has a lot to say about this…not selfies of course but the idea of us seeing one thing and God seeing another. That’s one of the things I love most about God: He doesn’t have my eyes. He has His own and they don’t see what I see.
It’s a theological term called Justification. It simply means that (upon accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior, explain salvation…) God sees Jesus in us!
That starts a process in us called Sanctification.
It’s a process where God refines us. Where God wants to start making us more Christ-like. That’s exciting, right? Here’s the problem…It’s not a fast, microwaved process. It takes the length of our entire lives to happen.
Planting grass… it was a lot more work in preparation then I had bargained for. Not to mention the grass took a lot longer to grow than I wanted it to.
I went out every morning, looked at the grass, and said hurry up. The grass, in turn, looked at me and said, shut your mouth, I will grow when I want to grow.
Then I looked at the grass and said, Bears got some poop over there, how about I smear some of that on your face.
And the grass was all like hey thanks for accidentally leaving the hose on for 6 extra hours yesterday when you left the house IDIOT.
And then I was all like, (laughing) why is my grass talking.
Thankfully, God is patient beyond our wildest dreams. He’s working a process in you. Right now.
To truly understand the process, we need to be honestly aware of our own sin. The book of Isaiah chapter 1:5&6 – the prophet Isaiah says that we are all sick. Our entire bodies are sick he says. Diseased.
He says from the sole of our feet to the top of our heads there is no soundness in it.
Most Old Testament prophets were healers too. Isaiah knew medicine. He knew disease. He knew the human condition of not just the body but also the soul.
We have a little thing going around right now called EBOLA! It’s all over the news, it’s terrible. It basically melts you from the inside out. Sin is nastier than Ebola! Ebola rots your body, sin rots your soul. Ebola ends your life on earth, sin ends your eternity in heaven!
Do we really GET what God did for us? Really?
Jesus was in His perfect, stainless, matchless, untarnished and majestic Heavenly home when He CHOSE to come here, to a place that had an epidemic spread to every human soul on the planet. It was infection, it was irreversible and it was catastrophically FATAL.
Would YOU go to a city where EVERYONE had Ebola, EVERYONE was dying, EVERYONE was contagious and you go, knowing the disease was going to suffer you a horrific, brutal death just to save people who WILLINGLY CHOSE to get sick!!???
Now I bet you’re glad God doesn’t see us as we see ourselves.
Have you ever looked in the mirror and been horrified? Usually first thing in the morning. You can be the best looking person of the year on the cover of people magazine and still wake up in the morning and think you’re ugly.
God does His best refining when we stop looking in the mirror.
With this human body comes a dashing suit of insecurity doesn’t it. We are riddled with insecurity. Each and every one of us on some level.
You’ve all used the term “identity crisis”. Maybe on yourself, maybe on someone else you’re observing.
Most Christians are suffering from an identity crisis.
Time to be brutally honest with yourself. If you can’t do this right now, there’s NO reason for me to even be wasting my time. – What makes up YOUR identity?
Is it what others think of you? Friends, co-workers, husband, wife, kids? Is your identity found in what car you drive, what house you have (that isn’t even yours because the bank owns it) , what job title you have, what successes you achieve?
As Christians our identities are found in CHRIST ALONE. The King James version says it best in John 1:12 when you believe in the NAME of Jesus, He gives YOU power and strength…even so much that you are considered SONS (and daughters) of GOD!
God sees Jesus in the mirror in your bathroom, you see a failure. God sees His child in your face and you see imperfections. God sees a champion and a warrior in you and you see a coward. God sees a saint of holy standing in you and you see a spiritual wreck.
It’s time for Christians everywhere to put on their big boy pants, throw cold water on their pity party faces, slap themselves AND WAKE UP TO THE AWESOME REALIZATION THAT YOU’RE A SAINT NOT A SINNER IN GOD’S EYES! ACT LIKE IT!
God want’s to do a great work IN us but WE keep getting in the way!
If you’re not letting God refine you, if you’re getting in His way by selfish living, insincere prayer and non existent Bible reading…YOU have an identity crisis that you need to take care of right here, right now!
There’s a process God is waiting to do, in you, that will make you the very best you can be.
Man my in-laws have the best cast-iron pans on the planet. 10 years ago I bought my own cast-iron pans and was massively disappointed.
My cast-iron pan didn’t look anything like their cast-iron pan. My cast-iron pans weren’t as nonstick as theirs were.
Did I buy the wrong cast-iron pans? What the heck was going on here?
Of course I would come to find out the secret. Their pans were really old. Their pans were seasoned. Their pans were in a different stratosphere than my pans. I had pan envy and I had it bad.
10 years later I’m getting closer but I still haven’t caught up to their pans. (it takes years to season cast iron, proper cleaning and oiling after each use slowly turns normal cast iron in the greatest cooking surface know to man)
Some of you are saying that’s too much work, just buy non-stick. NON STICK IS ONLY NON STICK UNTIL IT DECIDEDS IT DOESN’T WANT TO BE NON STICK ANYMORE. And it always happens at the worst time. Non stick starts to have it’s own identity crisis…and your eggs suffer a horrible death!
Meanwhile cast iron (with a little attention and dedication) get’s better with time and seasoning.
But Kyle my faith isn’t non stick right now! Your faith grows more non stick as you find your identity in Jesus Christ! Galatians 2 says that. You’ve got to abandon any image of yourself that is not from God. You need a Christ-centered identity that sin and insecurity can’t stick to!
You need to stop accepting how OTHERS have defined and labeled you. START believing what GOD says about you! You are a NEW creation! He is PLEASED with how He created you so you better be
So what to do Kyle? For starters stop running towards sin and start running away from it.
Get in God’s word daily, talk to Him constantly. Ask Him to refine you, get out of His way get into His plan!
Abandon your old self.
Trust me, you’ll like the new YOU that God creates! Soon you won’t even recognize the old YOU. You’ll find your identity in Jesus and you’ll change forever!
2 Corinthians 5:17 says (upon salvation) You have become a new creation! The old you is GONE and the NEW you is ready to rock.
iLL – when we moved, went back one last (hopefully emotional) time…empty. Voice echoed. Didn’t smell lived in. NOT THE SAME. It no longer had my identity in it. I had, literally MOVED ON.
When you put yourself aside and take up God, you need to MOVE ON. Stop looking back.
Allowing this process to happen is saying that you’re no longer INDEPENDENT but you’re now FULLY dependent on GOD.
That’s hard for some of you. It’s scary sometimes. To truly live a Christ centered life you’re going to have to let Him tear down some walls. You’re going to have to be brutally honest with yourself. You’re going to have to try hard to get your identity from Christ and not everyone or everything else!
Here’s a verse in the Bible that you should never look at the same way again.
Ephesians 2:5-6 says we were DEAD to sin. We were terminally diagnosed with an irreversible disease. Verse 6 says UPON salvation in Jesus, we were RAISED up TOGETHER and made to SIT TOGETHER in the heavenly places IN Christ Jesus. Wait, what??
Josh Peck points out something profound here in his book Quantum Creation.
This passage seems to be saying that, as Christians, we ALREADY are IN heaven!? (here he goes honey, Kyle’s getting weird again, he’s talking about weird things in the Bible) I can hear your thoughts.
We started off in this life as dead in our sins from the soles of our feet to the tops of our heads. If we had continued down that path and never accepted Jesus we would be dead already even though we are physically alive.
Accepting the gift of salvation takes us out of the spiritual state of death and raises us to life with Jesus Christ in heaven in that moment.
We were not born into a holy eternity we were born into a sin infested mortality. But when we accepted Jesus we were lifted into eternity (as the angels thundered rejoicing) to be seated with Jesus where we are right at this moment. The Bible says as Christians our names are sealed in heaven.
If you’re finding your identity, as Christian, in anything other than Jesus Christ, you’re not living a Christian life and God is waiting for YOU to let Him turn things around!
You just have to give your life to Him and then start letting Him refine you.
It starts today. Get out of His way and get into His plan.
Stop letting who you THINK you are get in the way of who God SAYS you are! Don’t doubt Him!
God looks at you and sees a NEW creation!
You are a child of the Living God!
The old is gone.
Leave it there!
