"Until we know the seriousness of
our diagnosis, it is impossible to
appreciate the cure." -Ben Young
The eyes of my heart
are now being opened.
The dots are slowly connecting
and revealing a greater mystery.
The reality of our destiny
is that without Jesus,
we are dead.
We are not helpless,
hopeless, struggling,
fighting, striving, or working.
We are dead.
By understanding the
reality of our "diagnosis"
without Jesus, we learn
to appreciate, worship,
exalt, and honor our "cure,"
our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Lately I've been wrestling
with this idea.
I've been asking God to reveal
to me the seriousness of my diagnosis.
So that I could then reach a new level
of worship and intimacy with Him.
This realization has been revealed
to me lately, through my own sin.
Through constantly failing
to reach God's standard.
"I had 'sinned' myself into a hole.
I found myself trapped in my
own dirty-ness and failure
that I began to question God."
So I "gave God a way out."
I deemed it appropriate to probably just
allow God a way out of loving me."
He couldn't possibly keep
on loving such a broken being.
These thoughts filled up my mind
for all of yesterday.
I'm fairly certain that they filled
my thoughts as I slept, too.
They hovered over me as I fell
asleep, and greeted me in the morning
with a huge slam to the face.
So on this gloomy, rainy, Monday morning,
I wrote a letter to my Jesus.
Asking Him of His reasoning
for unconditional love.
Was He out of His mind?
I read it aloud to Him.
"Oh, Jesus, how can You continue
to love such a broken being?
I'm too weak to even help myself.
I am destructive and careless,
corrupt and selfish.
Why, Lord?
Why do You choose to keep
on loving me?"
The answer was undeniable.
It was so loud, yet in the most
gentle, subtle, yet confident way.
I heard,
"Because you are mine.
You are mine.
You are my child.
I am jealous for you because
you belong to me.
By loving you, it brings
you back to me so I can
just be with you."
...What?
Did the God of the universe
just claim me as His own?
He sure did.
By understanding
how much differently
my destiny would look
without Jesus,
I've learned to appreciate
my Savior that much more.
I lift up holy hands and
raise a joyful noise
to the King.
The most beautiful thing
about Jesus is that once we
have accepted Him and asked
Him to save us from the hungry
pit of death that longs so deeply
to swallow us up,
is that He willingly gives us
His Robe of Righteousness
to wear.
Forever.
"And when we sin,
we cannot 'out-sin' Jesus."
We cannot make Him dirty.
Our uncleanliness does not
exist outside of Jesus' ability
to cleanse and heal us.
So many times I've wanted to
"take off" Jesus' Robe of Righteousness
and hang it in the closet labeled "unworthy."
I've been ashamed of the dirty-ness that lies
underneath His beautiful, pure, and spotless
Robe.
But Jesus says, "keep it on.
Take off the unrighteous behavior.
For you are mine.
So praise the One who
paid my debt and raised this life
up from the dead.
I've decided that rather than
striving to understand why
and how He continues to love me,
I will remain and rejoice in awe of Him.
How He stood in my place
and suffered the death
that I should have suffered.
How he took the role
as my "substitute."
How my salvation has absolutely
nothing to do with my own doings,
but has everything to do with
the love of my Jesus, selfless,
and willing to give His own life,
so that I could be with Him forever.
How even though I continue
to drag myself through
the mud and muck of sin,
He continues to wash me.
No comments:
Post a Comment