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?
Day 24 of Lent - Middle Kindling
“There is a fire in the soul that comes from beyond, and what the soul does in this life is very much driven by that fire.” ~Ronald Rolheiser
For almost every woman I know, there came or comes a Midlife Reckoning. The temptation is to become content with the ebbing embers and not the full fire.
Another common scenario in midlife is to begin to show up in the world with what the Bible calls (in Lev. 10:1) “strange fire”, telling the world that your faith is undergoing “deconstruction”. All the cool people are doing it.
Sadly, older does not equal wiser. Not always.
But there’s still hope! Anyone can reverse course, and find her fire again. Light equals life. Warmth equals comfort. Without fire, all that’s left is anxiety, depression, and loss of purpose. We are made for so much more in our one-and-only midlife season. We were made for GLORY.
And friend, where there is glory, there is fire!
For I, says the Lord,
will be a wall of fire around her, and I will be the GLORY in her middle…
~Zechariah 2: 5
It is possible, as humans, to encounter the fire of God as a lifestyle, and not just a once-or-twice-off experience. A Middle Kindling can be ours - this is so, because the connection forged with the God-man Jesus is real, and He is the one who said:
“I will not
leave you comfortless, I will come to you…”
And come, He did. In the form of tongues of fire that fell on all who were waiting there in that upper room. Say it with me:
“I can and I will receive my very own flame.”
That once-for-all-time sacrifice of Jesus has given us a fiery expectancy that can last a lifetime. It’s wired into your DNA.