Acceptance part 1
This is what I hear, "God loves you just the way you are... BUT He loves you too much to leave you that way." Which, to me, are two mutually exclusive statements. Either He loves you just the way you are... OR He wants to change you. It can't be both. If He loved you just the way you are--ACCEPTED you just the way you are--then there would be no NEED to change you. And, guys, that's the case. We don't need to change. We need to know the change that took place. God absolutely loves you just the way you are. What He wants is for you to KNOW the way you REALLY are. Because that's what God sees. He sees the truth. He sees the inner man. The hidden man of the heart. And that's who you really are. This Rant series is going to look at what acceptance really is, but first I want to make sure we know that everything acceptance is applies to us. Because, "To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved" (Ephesians 1:6). We ARE accepted in the beloved. The beloved is Jesus. He is accepted, and we are in Him so we are accepted. Period. No ifs ands or buts about it. We don't NEED to be accepted. We ARE accepted. God loves us--and He always has and He always will--just the way you are. Acceptance is not about trying to change somebody. If you accept them then you don't need to change them. And this is good news because it's impossible to change somebody else. In fact, it's impossible to change yourself! You can't force change from the outside in. Change has to come from the inside out. And that's what happened on the cross. That's what happened when our hearts were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands. The flesh (of human effort, or TRYING to change) was cut away and what was already--always--there was revealed. That's why Paul said to BE transformed by the renewing of you mind. He didn't say GET transformed. We have already BEEN transformed. Now we simply need to BE what we already ARE. Seeing is believing. When you look into the mirror with an unveiled face--with the veil or the stone of the Law of Moses (religion) taken away--THEN you see the glory of the Lord. And when you see it you are changed into that same image from glory to glory. When you SEE it... you BE it. When you SEE that you ARE accepted... then you will stop TRYING to be accepted. You will stop trying to jump through religious hoops in order to become something you think you're not. You'll accept who you are. Accept who your heavenly Father says you are. Our verse in Ephesians tells us that the glory of His grace is where our acceptance is found. We look at ourselves, and each other, through the eyes of grace. We see what God sees and then we see that the "change" already took place. We see Jesus in ourselves and each other. That's where we're accepted. That's where we connect. Spirit to Spirit. Holy to holy. The Jesus (the love) in me to the Jesus (the love) in you. Because it's only by knowing and believing that we ARE accepted that we will ever be able to accept ourselves. And once we accept ourselves... once we accept that we are loved... then we can accept each other. Then we can LOVE each other. Not try to change each other. Not judge each other. Accept each other. Love each other. Accept as we are accepted. Love as we are loved!