Break Glass part 3
When we use God as a last restort--a break glass in case of emergency--we miss out on so much of what is available to us. Jesus came to give us life and that more abundantly. He came to give us HIS life; eternal, everlasting, abundant, Resurrection Life. On the cross He gave His life for us and He gave His life to us. He opened up a whole new dimension of living. He equipped and empowered us to live in the context of a Son who is loved by His Father. See, we're always drawing lines. God is over here, but He's not over here. When the simple truth of the matter is that God is everywhere all the time. And more importantly, He lives in you. So wherever YOU are... there HE is. He doesn't want to be a PART of your life. He wants to BE your life, because He IS life. So when we, "do the best we can" on our own we're really robbing ourselves from what's available. We're living from a mindset of lack and poverty and trying to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, when in reality Jesus sweat great drops of blood and reversed the curse of human effort! He finished the work and gave us rest. And look at how Jesus speaks of this rest in Matthew 11:28-30 (MSG), "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? COme to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me--watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." Rest is the difference between religion and relationship. Religion always requires you to do something. In religion there's always "one thing you lack." Religion demands. Grace, and rest, empower. And I love the part where Jesus says He won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Rest makes life easy. It doesn't have to be a struggle. Trying to fit in. Trying to be somebody you're not. That's how we get into trouble. Paul said it like this, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind..." (Romans 12:2). We don't have to accept what the world throws at us. We don't have to wait until we're in dire straits before we let God get involved. And if we acknolowedge Him in ALL our ways He will direct our paths. He'll keep us out of trouble. Jude 1:24 describes God as, "...him that is able to keep you from falling..." But we don't seem to understand this. We seem to have the idea in our head that, "Well, I'm only human so I'm GOING to screw up. But grace will keep an angry God off my back and let me avoid punishment." Man... there's so much wrong there I don't even know where to start! First of all we ARE complete in Him. That's a done deal. You can't get any more perfect than the perfect One living inside of you. Secondly, God isn't mad at you. He's mad about you. And lastly, if avoiding punishment is your goal then you've really missed the entire point. We have the opportunity to keep company with God. To keep company with love. To dwell in His love. To explore His love. To receive and release His love. To truly live by being loved and by loving with that same love. So instead of trying to avoid punishment, and instead of waiting until we're in big trouble to call on the name of the Lord--instead of breaking the glass only in an emergency--we can get rid of the glass altogether and walk hand in hand ALL THE TIME with our Daddy!