Human Nature part 2
"This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (Galatians 3:2-3). The way I see it, if we're still (on this side of the cross) born with a "sin nature" then there work left to be done. There's something we need to DO in order to BE. But, since Jesus finished the work and poured out His Spirit on ALL flesh... we don't need to DO anything in order to BE anyone. We can be who we are. Who we REALLY are. Who we are in Christ because of who He is in us. Listen, if you're trying to be someone else then you can't be yourself. And God made you... you. He loves you just the way you are. He doesn't need you to CHANGE, He simply wants you to know the truth--the truth about Him and the truth about you. And here's the rub: The truth about Him IS the truth about you. Our true identity is Jesus. God in the flesh. Love in a body. That's who we really are. That's what it means to be human. To live is to love and to love is to live. So without this revelation of a Father who unconditionally loves us we try to earn something that is freely given. When we don't know the source of love we look for love in all the wrong places. And when we look for love in all the wrong places we make a mess of things. And then we blame that mess on our human nature. "Of course I messed up. I'm not perfect. I'm only human." We have this idea of ourselves as imperfect, incomplete screwups. But the Bible tells us something different: Colossians 2:10 declares, "And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power." We ARE complete. We HAVE BEEN made new. The work is finished! When Jesus died (both for us and as us) He dealt with that old nature, that beast nature. That selfish, sinful, soulish nature. And then when He rose again (both for us and as us) He gave us HIS nature. He filled us with the Holy Spirit--our love receptor--so that we could receive and release the love of the Father. So that we could live--truly live--in the context of a relationship between a heavenly Father who loves His Son and is well pleased with Him. And that's TRUE human nature: To be loved and to love with that same love. That was Jesus' new commandment: Love one another as He loves us. Receive it and release it. He filled us to overflowing so that we wouldn't have to TRY to make it happen. We're not made perfect by the flesh. We're made perfect by the truth that the perfect One lives inside of us! So on this side of the cross, "human nature" isn't about messing up. Or about getting something you think you don't have. Human nature is about knowing and believing that God loves you... and sharing what you do have with those around you! Tomorrow we're going to look at the whole idea of a "sin nature." Because sin is unbelief, right? So before the cross, before Jesus gave us something (someONE, Himself, love) to believe in... we DID have a sin nature. But no longer!