Who Told You That?

"Who told you that you were naked?” the LORD God asked.  Genesis 3:11

“I never went to college,” Marsha said. “My dad always told me I was too stupid.” Brent nodded. “I know what you mean. I’ve always been too scared to ask a girl out, ‘cause my grandma always told me I was too ugly.” He looked at his friend Andi. “You had a great family. You probably can’t understand what we’re talking about.” Andi gave a short laugh. “Yeah, my childhood was great, but I hate myself anyway. I’ve always wanted to play soccer or take gymnastics, but people made fun of me one time for being a clutz. So I sit on the sidelines and save everyone the misery of watching me fail.”

When Adam sinned, he allowed Satan to tell him who he was. Did Satan know? Did Satan create Adam in his own image? We make the same mistake Adam made when we allow hurtful words or experiences to tell us who we are: “You’re a failure.” “You’ll never amount to anything.” “You’re too ugly/stupid/poor/low class to ever have a successful life.” Sometimes we even let the mistakes we’ve made tell us who we are: “You’ve messed up too bad.” “Even God couldn’t fix you.” “Forget living purely after all you’ve done.” Do other people know our value? Did they create us in their own image? Just as Satan did not have the power to define the man that God made, neither does he—nor anyone else—have the power to define you. Your experiences are not YOU. Hurtful words from childhood are not YOU. Only God knows who you really are. Let Him define you.

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Does the BUT Define You?

...and such were some of you. But 

you have been washed, you have been cleansed… 

1 Corinthians 6:11

It was the bottom of the 10^th inning of the 6^th game of 1986 World Series. The Boston Red Socks were about to take their first title in 68 years, BUT…with two outs, first baseman Bill Buckner let a routine ground ball roll between his legs and the Mets won instead. That little word—BUT—changed everything. When Moses and a million Israelites stood on the banks of the Red Sea with a furious army in hot pursuit, they saw no hope, BUT…God parted the sea and they escaped. BUT is a little word with a lot of power to change our stories, both good and bad. No matter how things may appear, BUT can change everything.

Paul made a Top Ten List of evildoers who would never see God’s kingdom and then wrote, “and such were some of you.” In other words, most of us have worn labels from that list: Drunkard. Sexually immoral. Greedy. Those identities kept us under God’s judgement. BUT when Jesus saved us, He peeled off the old labels and gave us new ones: Child of God. Righteous. Accepted. When we surrender our lives to Jesus, He changes our identity and direction. We don’t continue living the Top Ten List while wearing the new labels He bought with His blood. BUT has power to change the World Series, to rescue the Israelites, and to change our identities. No matter what labels you wore in the past, BUT can change everything.

Find yourself on the list in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. 

Do the labels still fit, or have you let the BUT define you? 

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Are You A Fish on Land?

 

 

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; old things have passed away… 2 Corinthians 5:17

Freddy the fish saw the land animals frolicking on the shore and decided he wanted to be a land animal. They had legs, and lungs, and seemed to be having such fun. So one day he flipped himself out onto the beach and at last—he was a land animal! For a short time, he flopped about on the ground and experienced what the deer and squirrels seemed to enjoy. He was living the life they were living, but something was wrong. It was nothing like he thought it would be. Within seconds, he was gasping and longed only to be back in the water. Their lifestyles could not satisfy him because he had a different nature. 

 When the Holy Spirit moves into our hearts, He changes our natures. Old sins, habits, and lifestyles lose their luster. Even when we flip ourselves back into the sin cesspool, we cannot stay long because we don’t fit anymore. As a fish cannot live on land for long, so those born again by the blood of Jesus cannot live in sin for long (1 John 3:6-10). What once appealed to us no longer satisfies, because our new natures are gasping for the holiness and purity of God. One sure way to determine whether or not we belong to Christ is to study where our natures let us live. A creature that can thrive on land is not fish. Likewise, people who continue to indulge the vices, sins, and worldly lifestyles from which they were supposedly saved are not Christians. We will flip ourselves into sin from time to time, but our new natures cannot tolerate living there.

 Where does your nature allow you to live?

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The Best For Last

 

"Most serve the good wine first, and then when guests have drunk their fill, they bring out the cheaper quality wine. But you have saved the best till now.” (John 2:10)

We’ve all heard the excuses. Maybe you’ve used some yourself. “I would follow Jesus, but I don’t want to give up ___.” “Yeah, I know what the Bible says, but I think ….” “I want to enjoy my life right now. I’ll get serious about God when I’m old.”

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Those excuses are usually spouted by someone who believes himself quite clever and original for thinking of them. The truth is, those excuses were created in Hell’s excuse-factory and pumped into the atmosphere by the devil himself. He loves to propagate the idea that surrender to Jesus is the death knell for happiness. He has harnessed culture, entertainment, and media to help spread the lie that God’s plan is inferior to his. If we want REAL living, we will only find it his way.

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History tells a different story. When Jesus turned ordinary water into wine, it wasn’t just moonshine. He made wine of the highest quality, superior to anything the host had provided. He was demonstrating that when we leave a problem in His hands, He takes the solution to a higher level. He can take our ordinary and turn it into a miracle. He takes pain, heartache, and struggle and turns it into beauty, purpose, and a life that is superior to anything we can produce. Jesus is looking for ordinary people through whom He can produce the extraordinary. 

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When we trust Him in spite of suffering, obey Him in the face of temptation, and walk with Him even in the darkness, He takes us to a higher level. He transforms ordinary people into miracle-working kingdom builders. Our transformations demonstrate to the world that Jesus has “saved the best till now.”

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Are you making excuses or are you allowing Jesus to transform your “ordinary”?

The sun was brutal this summer.
The dusky sky gave no rain.
Days on end brought record heat.
Record drought.

And this was the result.

These dead sticks are supposed to be full of purple flowers.

I gave up on my flower gardens.
Even the grass wouldn't grow.
Everything was parched and brown.

And I got used to it.

So used to it that when the long-awaited rains finally came,
I scarcely noticed the subtle changes.

Amidst the dead,ugly sticks, new life had begun.
At first it was so low to the ground,
anyone would miss it.

But there was no excuse for not noticing
when the dead sticks began to bloom.

The beauty was there to see,
but I had stopped looking for it.

Have you gotten used to life being a white-knuckle event?

• Have you stopped seeing the potential, the beauty, the eternal benefits in what you're doing?

• Are you walking right past the gifts God has given you with scarcely a nod?

Take another look around your life.

• Maybe the rains have come and you didn't notice.

• Maybe that sour, negative attitude has become so much a part of you that you scarcely notice it anymore.

• Maybe that victim mentality has outworn its welcome.

• Maybe your words have started reflecting Satan's lies rather than the truth of God.

Is your life a flower garden that everyone can appreciate but you?
Isn't it time you enjoyed the flowers God has created for your enjoyment?
A flower is a terrible thing to waste.

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Nobody's This Ugly

This is the ugliest tree I've ever seen.

It used to be beautiful, full and heavy, a fifteen-year-old Virginia Pine I planted as a seedling. But the last two winters of heavy snow and ice took their toll and bent the poor thing in half. There was no standing it up again, so I took my chainsaw and sorrowfully chopped it off. I thought about sawing it all off and pulling up the stump, but I hated to. After all, it wasn't dead.

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Maybe it would come out of it. Maybe there was something worth saving.

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I left one straggly branch as a goodwill token, hoping it wouldn't hate me so much and give up entirely. Secretly, I planned to wait until it officially died and then go about the gruesome task of digging it out with an appeased conscience. (Yes, I get attached to my trees. I've had some of them longer than some of my children.)

It shouldn't live. Whacking it off like that should have put it into shock too great to recover. But take a look...

That's healthy new growth sprouting on those twisted branches! There's new life inside that twisted tree. It hasn't given up.

Life can be vicious and ugly, robbing us of vitality and a will to live. The world gives us a thousand reasons to give up and die, and too often we believe it. But new life can thrive in the most unlikely places, when we let God do it through us.

Has life dealt you a tough blow? Do you feel as ugly and twisted as that tree? Don't give up on yourself too soon.

God loves to coax new life from deadwood. What you call defeat, God might call pruning. Hang in there and see what beauty he can bring from your ruins. With God, it's never too late.
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