Graceful Rewrite part 3
The thing about a rewrite is that, while it may draw from the original... once it's "fixed," the messed up version doesn't exist anymore. Let me say it like this, sometimes you have to do something wrong before you can do it right. And while I guess you could call that making a mistake... I call it learning and growing. Very rarely is someone good at doing something new. Often you have to stumble before you learn to walk. But once you learn to walk it doesn't matter that you used to stumble. Once the story is rewritten, nobody sees all of the "mistakes." And that's what grace does in your life. God sees you as perfect, because when He sees you, He sees Jesus. You are complete in Him. Right now. And this process of learning and growing is simply the process of learning what it means to be complete. We can't get any more complete. We can't get any more perfect than having the Perfect One living inside of us. It's not a matter of getting something we haven't got. It's simply a matter of learning what we have got. Learning what it means to be blessed with all Spiritual blessings. Learning what it means that the Father loves us and has given all things into our hands. The story--the never ending, eternal life-long story--is God loving us and us learning about love. That's what a disciple is: a student of love. Learning how to love as we learn how we are loved. And all of those things that we've done that we think ought to disqualify us... God doesn't even remember those things. He purposefully forgot them. And He wrote His laws--the perfect law of liberty, the New Commandment--IN our hearts. He took things out of the external realm and brought them into the internal realm. Remember that story I spoke about? It's a journey into the heart of the matter. And the heart of the matter... is the heart. Jesus is the beginning and the end, right? And that means LOVE is the beginning and the end. It starts with love and it ends with love. Love is the first word in His story. The first word in OUR history. And it's also the last word. Love is the FINAL word. It's a love story. Getting bigger and bigger and better and better as we learn to open our hearts to love. As we learn to lay aside the sin (unbelief) that so easily besets us and stop trying to earn something that is freely given. If it's all about love--and it is--then the most trouble you can possibly get into is looking for love in all the wrong places. Because that human effort robs us of the gift we've been given. Only through rest can we experience the finished work of the cross. When we try to finish the work we get all messed up. When we try to fight anything other than the good fight of faith... we lose. Because the good fight of faith is laying hold of eternal life. Receiving what we've been given so we can release it to those we come into contact with. Not trying to rewrite our own story, but understanding that grace already did! We are, right now, who we need to be. We are, right now, where we need to be (at least for right now). We don't need to change. We simply need to see the change that took place. We don't need to be someone we're not. We simply need to know who we really are. Abraham didn't stagger at the promise of God. That's the final word on Abraham. You are perfect. That's the final word on you!