Receive part 1
I preach about receiving and releasing a lot. Because I think its important. The secret of life, perhaps. Because the thing that we are receiving and releasing is the gift of God. Which is eternal life. Which is knowing the one true God and the One whom He sent. Knowing the Father in the context of being His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. Experiencing Jesus' life by letting Him live it in you, and through you, and as you. And that's basically what I want to focus on for the next few days; not trying to get anything, but receiving what we already have. Fighting the good fight of faith and laying hold of eternal life. Not getting it, because we already have it. Jesus gave His life FOR us on the cross... but He also gave His life TO us on the cross. We have it. Right now. What we need to do, well, let me quote my passage of Scripture. Colossians 3:9-10, "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." That's it right there. The old man believed the lie that the serpent hissed into his ear (I know it was technically Eve, but Adam and Eve were kind of almost one and the same so bear with me). The lie that says you have to do in order to be. The lie that says you have to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in order to be like God. When the truth of the matter is, as He is, so are we in this world. We we created in His image in the beginning, and we were conformed to the image of His Son on the cross. We are who we need to be. What we need to do is BE transformed (into what we've already been transformed into) by the renewing of our minds. By letting the mind of Christ (that's already in us) BE in us. BE renewed by the knowledge of Him. Our true identity. Who we really are is who we are in Christ. And who we are in Christ is who Christ is in us. Jesus. God in the flesh. Love in a body. God in OUR flesh. Love in OUR body. So that old man that believed the lie could only speak lies. You can't give what you don't have and you can only give what you do have. When we put him off--burying him in the watery grave of baptism--we reject the lie and accept the truth. And its only when you know the truth that you CAN reject, or ignore, the lie. Because the truth is so good that nothing else matters. Not too good to be true, but so good that it must be true! And here's where I wanted to get to: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). If you're in Christ--and you are. When He was lifted up on the cross He drew all men into Himself--you're a new creature. But you need to PUT ON that new man. You need to accept it. Know it and believe it. Because the truth HAS set you free and made you free. But if you don't know it, you'll keep acting like a slave instead of a Son. The new has come. Its here. Its you. Receive it. Put it on. Get comfortable in it. And, yes, that takes time. Change always does. But the gift (again) is eternal life. So we have all the time in the world. All we need to do is stop trying to be someone we're not, and learn how to be who we are. Let Jesus be Himself in us, and through us, and as us!