Part 3

August , 16, 09

What a purchase! And what a price!

Created in His image, after His likeness, screwed up by the fall…redeemed by His blood, purchased by blood and brought back to my original value. How valuable am I? Worth the blood of Jesus! How do I know? Because when His blood was poured out on that cross, He was screaming in the loudest of voices “I love you” and I was being released into my full created potential. It was the most dramatic event in all of history….effecting my past present and future and releasing me into my fullest potential. But why did he love me so? Because I was created in His image and after His likeness. I am His original.

I am His great idea….born in this time, to represent a uniqueness in the deep heart of God that only I can express. He loved me and wanted me back. That is the basis for my value…why I am special, and so worthy of his blood. There is no one like me before or after that was created to express Him in the way that only I do.

Now I know that this isn’t my daily experience. The problem is that I have let my daily experience influence my doctrine. Instead of truth becoming my daily experience, I have chosen to believe my daily experience and have relinquished my true potential. I have been deceived into walking by sight. I have become a sensual Christian, interpreting life and living live in the natural, convinced more by my failures than the truth of my created value.

All of God’s promises had been relinquished and I had chosen to live the normal life of every other earthling...waiting for heaven and hoping secretly for the day He might show up in real time and space. I was doing good things and trying to be nice to the jerks, I mean the people in my world. Self centered, self indulged, mediocre, mundane, religious nut case, deceived into thinking this is my life.

I have heard the stories of God at work in the world and wondered why and how I missed out on all of the excitement, thinking God and life had passed me by. Occasionally I would get a glimpse of reality, feel His presence, feel loved and special, Kind of like the feeling of good sex or good coffee. That moment was great and I would swoon over the thought that I was truly loved only to lose that feeling in the tough realities of a shrinking economy, failing business ventures, a diminishing bank account, law suits and loneliness.

My life was all over the road. I loved God and knew I was loved, not really sure why but had been told it enough all of my life that it must be true. I wasn’t living in condemnation over my mediocrity, at least not a whole lot. I was trying not to be mediocre, reading the word, listening to men who I could see were living my dream life, wishing I had been in their shoes…wondering why I wasn’t… men that were not religious or building their own kingdoms but doing the amazing works of Christ in the here and now.

I began to read John 13 through 17 over and over and over for months, asking God to open it up to me. The promises Jesus made to his followers which included me were amazing but so beyond my experience. Why would He promise such things if it were not true. And if it is true, what piece am I missing that my life is so unreflected of what He promised. I have heard it said that God hides things for us, not from us. But why was He hiding so well and when would I find His answers.

My daughter invited my wife and I to a meeting in Nashville where we heard a man speak who actually scared me some. He actually believed what he was teaching. It was like he had become the message. He wasn’t sermonizing. I was some uncomfortable with his delivery, humor and confidence. But I was desperate and my spirit was responding more than my mind. At the end of his speaking he provided an opportunity for unbelievers to respond and give their lives to God. To my embarrassment, I was the first one standing and then my wife stood immediately beside me. We were the only one’s standing. My spirit was crying out “YES, YES, I WANT THIS”. I was so surprised and we were making such a spectacle of ourselves. It was awkward and uncomfortable and I kicked my self the rest of the day.

But that day God gave me a new set of glasses, and little by little I began to gain a new perspective on every thing Jesus.. Circumstances have changed some. We are still in a tight place in many regards but little by little our eyes are being enlightened to the wonders of his word. Paul actually prayed this for me…that the eyes of my heart would be enlightened, that I would know the hope of my calling and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in me. I am finding the Helper, the Spirit of truth, our mentor, breathing afresh on familiar texts and illuminating what He accomplished for us and in us on that dark day in History… the day of such paradox. A visual of failure and embarrassment, suffering and sorrow, yet the pivotal point in all of history from which every good and perfect plan of the God of the ages finds it’s fulfillment in the earth and in and through our lives….yours and mine.