Day 28 of Lent - The God Who Is Aware
The ultimate reality is that we are wrapped up in love like a blanket by a God who sees and knows. In fact, one of the first things He revealed about Himself towards a collective people was, “I am aware…”
The Creator of this universe has taken upon Himself to be aware of your suffering - whether that groaning and oppression is inflicted upon you by another, or whether you are your own worst enemy, He is aware. And anything that the Living God is aware of, He is prepared to act upon.
This is because our God is “us and we”. Elohim. He operates out of His innate community. He is others-aware by nature. He is one God, in the form of the community of Father, Son, and Spirit. He is not a solitary remote Being who we must appease. Rather, He comes to us in the form of Jesus, who broke bread with sinners and was so in tune with our suffering that He wept at the graveside of His friend, all the while knowing what He was about to do: raise him from the dead!
This moment, that same risen Christ is speaking to the Father about you. The Bible says that He “ever lives” to consult and confer with God for you. Is it any wonder that the Psalmist could exclaim:
“ How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God, how vast is their sum! If I were to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; and when I awake, I am still with You.…”
We serve a God who dwells outside of time, and He does His work between the tick and the tock of clock time. Whether it is daytime or nighttime, whether we are asleep or awake makes no difference to Him. Because of Jesus, our needs are ever before the Godhead - even the hairs on our head are numbered.
We simply cannot fathom that level of intimate awareness and complete acceptance.
May He visit you in the night watches. May He reveal Himself to you in your hour of affliction. May He come to you in the sunrise, and as the sun. The sun rises, unbidden, without your command or consent it brings light. His mercies are sure, and the same - brand new, every morning, fresh from a faithful friend.
Day 27 of Lent - No Shame In My Game
Many of our psychological and emotional issues can be reduced or even eliminated by a child-like, audacious faith in what Christ accomplished in terms of our justification. Having said that, some will accuse me of over-simplifying. Some will disagree so strongly they will even feel upset with me.
Ain’t skeered.
I need you to know something: you can’t shame me.
Others have tried. But my inward revelation of having been hidden “in Christ” is making me ever-increasingly shameless. Even when I blow it.
Most of us are born with an ingrained sense of “wrong-ness”. Innately, we deeply feel the fact that we are not enough, or too much, or wired incorrectly. Our upbringing gets blamed, our current circumstances are blamed, our spouse is blamed, our job is blamed - and a few of us blame ourselves and nothing else for our glaring flaws and big sins.
When something goes off-kilter in our physical body, we know it needs healing. Our body needs better nutrition or physical therapy or medicine - it needs something outside itself to return to a state of health.
It is no different for our soul. When our soul gets off-kilter, it needs to be healed. Sin truly is a sickness. And there is only one known remedy given amongst humans whereby we can be made whole: the finished work of the Vicarious Man, Jesus.
He allowed Himself to be made wrong so that we could be made right forever. He became sin, even though He never sinned, so that we could claim His right-ness as our right-ness.
His right-ness, His righteousness, in exchange for our sin. The sin that made our souls innately sick.
Confidence in the strength of His right-ness, plus nothing else, can give us a confidence that heals our inward, unseen, spiritual places. It cures insecurity, which heals us of our comparison, unhealthy competition, jealousy, sense of rejection, and shame.
Oh, how the blood of Christ removes shame!
Mine is a simple message, isn’t it?