Glass half ______

Romans 8: 29

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

So, is your glass half empty or half full? I find there are two very distinct classes of Christians. There are those who are fully cognizant of their faults and short comings and those whose eyes behold who they are in Christ.

Half empty glass Christians are very focused on their failures and even their sins. Half full glass Christians, while aware of their imperfection, choose to focus on the one who is perfect. Can we one day be all too aware of our faults and the next be fully persuaded about Christ’s victory in our life? Sure but I find that people tend to reside in one philosophy or the other.

I want to encourage you to see who you are in Christ and abandon the glass half empty approach to Christianity. The glass half empty people constantly look at their mistakes, their faults and their weaknesses. “Let the weak say, “I am strong!” (Joel 3: 10 Amplified). There are two problems with the theology of constantly looking at our weakness. First, it is not Biblical. Though we know we are weak, though we know we are flawed we are supposed to declare “I am strong” because our strength is in our Lord.

The other flaw in this approach is that it is self-centered instead of being Christ centered. We are supposed to have our eyes on him, not on ourselves. We have to get us off of our minds and put our thoughts on Jesus and the glory of what he has done for us. The scripture says that we are the righteousness of God in Jesus (2 Corinthians 5: 21). Why are we calling ourselves wretched and sinful when God calls us His righteousness?

Sometimes this theology even goes so far as to harp on our sins and sinful natures. Well, isn’t that why God sent a savior? We were lost with no power to save ourselves but when Jesus went to the cross he took our sins with him and nailed them to that tree. Jesus took the sin of the world and crucified it. Of course that doesn’t mean that we never fail but it does mean that we have been redeemed from the curse of sin, we have been restored to our right place with God and our sins have been washed by the blood. If we are saved, and we surely confess that we are, then our sin debt has been paid. We have been redeemed. We are no longer sinners but rather saints. To call ourselves sinners when Christ paid the price of our sin with his life is to throw his sacrifice in his face. It is like saying, “Hey Jesus, your sacrifice wasn’t good enough to clean me. I am a special kind of sinner.”

I know some adopt this posture as a form of humility but in truth, it is a false humility because it is obsession with our image of ourselves. True humility is to take our eyes off of ourselves and put them on our Lord and savior. Our thoughts and words should echo scripture and his great victory which we won for us.

You are the precious, redeemed, restored, sanctified, righteous child of the most high. Let your mouth talk about what Jesus has done instead of what you have done and you will find that your glass isn’t half full. It’s overflowing.

Redeemed, Restored & Renewed

Galatians 3: 13 – 14

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us – for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” – in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles.

This is a message of the cross that we do not hear often and yet it is so profound that we should be shouting it from the housetops. This is a huge statement. While we were yet under the curse, God provided a way, the way, to redeem us from that curse. Jesus Christ, our beloved, went to the cross not to bear the burden of the curse but rather he became a curse so that we could be freed from the curse, from sin and from death. Jesus went to the cross so that we could be redeemed from the curse of the law and thereby be reconciled to God and into the blessing of Abraham.  

This passage encourages further study for it demands an answer to the question, “What is the blessing of Abraham?” It also answers many questions and some very large ones at that. We know, beyond doubt, that we are to live lives of blessing being no longer under the curse. We are heirs of all of the promises God made to Abraham. We know what the Christian life is to look like and it is not one of sickness, disease and poverty. Those are in the curse. It is not a life on anguish and torture. We are delivered from the curse of the law, from the power of darkness, into the kingdom of his dear son.

Additional text: Deuteronomy 28: 1-14

Restored

Jeremiah 30: 17                  Index Card 10

For I will restore you to health and I will heal you of your wounds.

This is one of my favorite healing verses because it speaks of wounds. That one word expands healing in my mind. Healing is not limited to disease and sickness. God will even heal our wounds and injuries. That is an important distinction for me.

When I was young I played sports and I suffered some injuries. Those injuries have plagued me throughout my life. Imagine my delight to find out that God is able and willing to heal injuries and wounds as well as diseases, but then I guess in reality an injury causes a great deal of dis-ease if we think of the word in its most literal terms.

So, if you have old injuries or wounds, realize that God provided for your healing thousands of years ago. We don’t have to carry these injuries the rest of our lives. Isn’t that great news?