There are, generally speaking, two ways to legally own something in society: to make it or to buy it. Even your paycheck falls into the latter because you have given your time and effort for that money. Then, of course, that money is used to buy things in the more traditional sense of the word.
God owns us by virtue of both means. He made us, and then He bought us back when we'd given ourselves away. There is no reason for us to believe we are not His.
I was intending to go through what Jesus suffered to show how much He loves us, but I think I may take a different track.
There may be no reason for us to believe we are not His, yet it seems most Christians do. I'm writing another book right now on confidence/finding your identity in Christ and this one is a re-telling of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, told through the journals of the father and his two sons. The story in the Bible doesn't really end, though, in the sense of all loose ends being tied up, so I take it a bit further, and use a little literary license to ask, "What would happen if the younger brother had woken up the next morning, not put on the robe, left the sandals, and taken off the ring, and gone to work in the field with the servants because he felt unworthy?" I think a lot of Christians fall into that category. We are grateful to be back with our father, but we forget our status as a son or daughter, we forget that our unworthiness doesn't matter to our father.
Or we forget that we have always been His, like the older brother, and we get frustrated trying to earn things that He wants to give us and will when our hearts are focused on Him.
Both ways speak of pride (in thinking we can ever earn something from God) and lead to frustration, anger, emptiness, and a life that is nothing like what God wants for us. This is not a name-it, claim-it message. I'm not saying God will give you mansions and billions of dollars if you ask and believe. Paul lived a life of prisons and beatings, yet he was so full of God's love that he could sing in prison, so full of faith in God that even when his chains fell off, he didn't leave because God didn't want him to. And I personally believe that he wouldn't have traded his life for that of a king's. No, your life may not be full of gold and vacations if you follow God, though there are some devoted Christians God has chosen to entrust a lot of money to, but how about a life of joy, a life where you can relax knowing you don't have to prove yourself to anyone, a life of freedom to love others and yourself purely? How much would that be worth?
That's our heritage in Christ. That's what we get when we both know Him and believe we're His. We were made by Him and bought by Him. And then He turned us from the slaves we ought to rightfully be into His adopted sons and daughters.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
Picasso's Lost Painting
Imagine going to a garage sale and finding this ugly little painting in an old, worn frame. The thing is grotesque and you wonder why anyone would have it in the first place, much less be willing to buy it at a garage sale. You notice that the frame hides some part of the painting and, at first, you think, "Good! The less of it I have to see, the better!" But then you notice what look to be the tops of letters peeking out from the frame. You, ever so carefully, push that corner of the painting back and peer down, allowing just enough light for you to make out "Picasso."
Suddenly, your opinion of the value of this painting changes dramatically and you are astonished at your luck. You wonder if it's too good to be true and how the owner could possibly sell it here. It either has to be fake or she doesn't know what she has.
What changed? Certainly not the painting. It's as ugly as ever, with eyes, ears, and noses all over the place; sharp, angular features no human could possibly ever have; and what may or may not be a second mouth. No, what makes it valuable is the signature of the person who painted it. It's aesthetic appeal may be 0, but it's worth millions simply because it is a Picasso.
We're like that. Whether our particular painting is as beautiful as a Monet, as wonderfully detailed as a Renoir, or as hideous a thing as we can imagine, the value is the same because we bear the mark of the Maker. It was God who painted us. He didn't paint our lives to be the sinners we are, but He made us. However ugly our lives become, they are still lives created by Him.
Think about this for a second: God loves Hitler as much as He loves John the Baptist. Sound hard to believe? I know I have a hard time with it. And yet, even though I can't understand how, it's true.
You may be wondering how much God can really love you. Maybe you've done something terrible, or maybe you just don't like yourself very much, but God can and does love you and it has nothing to do with what you've done or what kind of mess you may have made of your life. He created you and chose to love you.
Next time, probably on Monday, we'll look at the other half of why you're valuable: because Jesus died for you. Then, the next session will be on what that means for us in relation to our identity.
Suddenly, your opinion of the value of this painting changes dramatically and you are astonished at your luck. You wonder if it's too good to be true and how the owner could possibly sell it here. It either has to be fake or she doesn't know what she has.
What changed? Certainly not the painting. It's as ugly as ever, with eyes, ears, and noses all over the place; sharp, angular features no human could possibly ever have; and what may or may not be a second mouth. No, what makes it valuable is the signature of the person who painted it. It's aesthetic appeal may be 0, but it's worth millions simply because it is a Picasso.
We're like that. Whether our particular painting is as beautiful as a Monet, as wonderfully detailed as a Renoir, or as hideous a thing as we can imagine, the value is the same because we bear the mark of the Maker. It was God who painted us. He didn't paint our lives to be the sinners we are, but He made us. However ugly our lives become, they are still lives created by Him.
Think about this for a second: God loves Hitler as much as He loves John the Baptist. Sound hard to believe? I know I have a hard time with it. And yet, even though I can't understand how, it's true.
You may be wondering how much God can really love you. Maybe you've done something terrible, or maybe you just don't like yourself very much, but God can and does love you and it has nothing to do with what you've done or what kind of mess you may have made of your life. He created you and chose to love you.
Next time, probably on Monday, we'll look at the other half of why you're valuable: because Jesus died for you. Then, the next session will be on what that means for us in relation to our identity.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
In the Beginning...
I don't know your particular beliefs on Creationism or even on God for that matter. I've talked before in this blog about issues I have with the Big Bang Theory and evolution and, I'll admit, there are a couple things about the strict literal interpretation of the Bible's account of creation that I don't understand. That's not the point of this entry.
I take it on faith that the Bible's account is true, and, even if some of the things such as the literal interpretation of "day" aren't the same as we know them, I believe in the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve as the first people.
When I read other stories in the Bible, I see a lack of confidence in so many places. Gideon saw a miracle and then tested God twice before He was willing to follow Him. Moses saw and argued with a burning bush. He knew full well it was God and God was talking to Him like we talk to each other, yet he basically said, "Uh-uh. I'm not good enough to do that. I'm just a shepherd and besides, I stutter." Saul was so angry that David was more highly praised than he was that he sought to kill David.
You don't see this before the Fall, even though God's commands to Adam and Eve were more daunting. Gideon was told to lead an army, Moses to free a people, and Saul to rule them justly; Adam and Eve were told to name everything and conquer the planet. Their response? From all we can tell, it was, "Ok, we got this." No argument, no "I'm not worthy" protestations, nothing.
That all changed when they were tempted by the snake. They were told that God had withheld something from them and they believed it. Two things happened in that moment: they started to doubt God's goodness and they started to doubt whether they were good enough. They knew the tree was called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and they hadn't eaten of it to that point. They didn't know what evil was, and they had been content not to know. They had been content with God's goodness and with their own value, even though they didn't know something. They doubted God's goodness, and their value is automatically called into question. Faith in God and self-confidence have been intrinsically linked ever since.
The truth: Your faith in yourself will never be stronger than your faith in God.
You may believe in yourself to do certain things well, but if you feel you keep having to do them, what does that say about your belief in your inherent self-worth? If your life would utterly fall apart and you'd feel worthless if one person walked out of it, what does that say about where you get your value? The fact is that your value comes from something outside of you and anything you can do, have done, haven't done, own, or accomplish and is not dependent on who likes you, respects you, or wants to be with you. Your value is because God created you and decided to love you.
And that will be the topic next time.
I take it on faith that the Bible's account is true, and, even if some of the things such as the literal interpretation of "day" aren't the same as we know them, I believe in the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve as the first people.
When I read other stories in the Bible, I see a lack of confidence in so many places. Gideon saw a miracle and then tested God twice before He was willing to follow Him. Moses saw and argued with a burning bush. He knew full well it was God and God was talking to Him like we talk to each other, yet he basically said, "Uh-uh. I'm not good enough to do that. I'm just a shepherd and besides, I stutter." Saul was so angry that David was more highly praised than he was that he sought to kill David.
You don't see this before the Fall, even though God's commands to Adam and Eve were more daunting. Gideon was told to lead an army, Moses to free a people, and Saul to rule them justly; Adam and Eve were told to name everything and conquer the planet. Their response? From all we can tell, it was, "Ok, we got this." No argument, no "I'm not worthy" protestations, nothing.
That all changed when they were tempted by the snake. They were told that God had withheld something from them and they believed it. Two things happened in that moment: they started to doubt God's goodness and they started to doubt whether they were good enough. They knew the tree was called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and they hadn't eaten of it to that point. They didn't know what evil was, and they had been content not to know. They had been content with God's goodness and with their own value, even though they didn't know something. They doubted God's goodness, and their value is automatically called into question. Faith in God and self-confidence have been intrinsically linked ever since.
The truth: Your faith in yourself will never be stronger than your faith in God.
You may believe in yourself to do certain things well, but if you feel you keep having to do them, what does that say about your belief in your inherent self-worth? If your life would utterly fall apart and you'd feel worthless if one person walked out of it, what does that say about where you get your value? The fact is that your value comes from something outside of you and anything you can do, have done, haven't done, own, or accomplish and is not dependent on who likes you, respects you, or wants to be with you. Your value is because God created you and decided to love you.
And that will be the topic next time.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Significant Changes
Much has happened since I've last been here. I've moved to Colorado Springs, for one. It's beautiful here; I can see Pike's Peak from my house, all majestic and oft capped by clouds.
I've also finished writing a book and gotten it published on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/More-Confident-You-Discovering-ebook/dp/B007124L96/ref=pd_rhf_cr_p_t_2 It's called A More Confident You: Discovering Your True Value (Note: I have recently changed the title to Your True Value: Unlocking the Gospel's Extraordinary Secret), and writing it changed my life. I'm not going to turn this blog into a self-promotion bonanza, but if you're a guest who stumbled across this, I strongly encourage you to look into it. It's only $3 and it talks about getting a self-confidence that's set in stone, one you don't feel like you have to prove constantly through that next promotion, relationship, or nice TV.
Ok, now that the book plug is done, what I may do is turn this blog into a series of insights I learned from it. First up: the reason atheism and other religions won't give you lasting self-confidence.
Consider an atheist's worldview for a moment. It's really depressing. It states, in essence, that we are the byproduct of billions of years of random chance (or a long line of impossibly complex mathematical equations, which is really the same thing if we can't possibly understand them). We're born, we live, we die, and that's it. No meaning. No future. Life is what we make it and it's all we have. That last sentence may sound good, but what then does it matter if someone is deprived of that life early? What does it matter if it's wasted or wonderful? At the end, all of it was for nothing because life is meaningless. Even helping others is meaningless because they, too, will die, along with all their emotions and memories and talents and fears. We may all have the same inherent value in such a worldview, but that value is 0. Any value we have is earned, which means we keep having to earn it.
With other religions, they all say the same thing: do this, do this, and don't do that and, if you're lucky, our god(s) will smile on you and give you what you want. You never really know where you stand with such a god because we all know someone whose moral standards we disagree with, yet whose life seems better than our own, so we know it's not a hard and fast rule that anyone with a good life must be serving the right god. Besides, if that were the case, we'd all serve that god, but none of us would love him or her. It'd all be about what we could get out of it, which is sadly where a number of Christians are in their faith. Christianity is the only one that says, "There's nothing you can do to earn heaven. It's about what I (Jesus) did, not about what you do. Believe in Me, and love Me. That's it." There may be other commandments, such as love your neighbor as yourself, but those aren't requirements for getting into heaven; they're things we should do because we love God...and because we understand that God loves us.
The real difference is that with God, you can't earn anything. It's given to you. With other gods, your friends, coworkers, bosses, and significant other, love is earned. Even with family, though there may be some bond that is always there, love is earned. It can be stronger or weaker depending on how you've made each other feel. But God's love for you, the value He sees in you, is always the same. He's not going to leave you because you got fat, or because you missed a deadline at work, or because you messed up and went too far with your boyfriend or girlfriend. He loves you the same no matter what you do. Because His love is steadfast, your value is steadfast.
Next time, we'll look at where our struggles with self-confidence began.
I've also finished writing a book and gotten it published on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/More-Confident-You-Discovering-ebook/dp/B007124L96/ref=pd_rhf_cr_p_t_2 It's called A More Confident You: Discovering Your True Value (Note: I have recently changed the title to Your True Value: Unlocking the Gospel's Extraordinary Secret), and writing it changed my life. I'm not going to turn this blog into a self-promotion bonanza, but if you're a guest who stumbled across this, I strongly encourage you to look into it. It's only $3 and it talks about getting a self-confidence that's set in stone, one you don't feel like you have to prove constantly through that next promotion, relationship, or nice TV.
Ok, now that the book plug is done, what I may do is turn this blog into a series of insights I learned from it. First up: the reason atheism and other religions won't give you lasting self-confidence.
Consider an atheist's worldview for a moment. It's really depressing. It states, in essence, that we are the byproduct of billions of years of random chance (or a long line of impossibly complex mathematical equations, which is really the same thing if we can't possibly understand them). We're born, we live, we die, and that's it. No meaning. No future. Life is what we make it and it's all we have. That last sentence may sound good, but what then does it matter if someone is deprived of that life early? What does it matter if it's wasted or wonderful? At the end, all of it was for nothing because life is meaningless. Even helping others is meaningless because they, too, will die, along with all their emotions and memories and talents and fears. We may all have the same inherent value in such a worldview, but that value is 0. Any value we have is earned, which means we keep having to earn it.
With other religions, they all say the same thing: do this, do this, and don't do that and, if you're lucky, our god(s) will smile on you and give you what you want. You never really know where you stand with such a god because we all know someone whose moral standards we disagree with, yet whose life seems better than our own, so we know it's not a hard and fast rule that anyone with a good life must be serving the right god. Besides, if that were the case, we'd all serve that god, but none of us would love him or her. It'd all be about what we could get out of it, which is sadly where a number of Christians are in their faith. Christianity is the only one that says, "There's nothing you can do to earn heaven. It's about what I (Jesus) did, not about what you do. Believe in Me, and love Me. That's it." There may be other commandments, such as love your neighbor as yourself, but those aren't requirements for getting into heaven; they're things we should do because we love God...and because we understand that God loves us.
The real difference is that with God, you can't earn anything. It's given to you. With other gods, your friends, coworkers, bosses, and significant other, love is earned. Even with family, though there may be some bond that is always there, love is earned. It can be stronger or weaker depending on how you've made each other feel. But God's love for you, the value He sees in you, is always the same. He's not going to leave you because you got fat, or because you missed a deadline at work, or because you messed up and went too far with your boyfriend or girlfriend. He loves you the same no matter what you do. Because His love is steadfast, your value is steadfast.
Next time, we'll look at where our struggles with self-confidence began.
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