God doesn’t want you to conform to some mold and be a good little Christian boy scout. That’s just what religious people want you to do. God wants you to be more of an individual, more unique than you can even imagine. Jesus was a natural radical, a sincere rebel, an easy revolutionary, and He created you to be the same way.
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“But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.”
1st Corinthians 6:17 NIV
Paul says that when you become a Christian, you become one with God spiritually. Before you became a Christian, your spirit was dead because of sin, but now it is alive again. How did God make it alive again? By joining Himself with you so completely that you are now one with Him.
There is no dividing line, no space, no difference between your spirit and His. In fact, it is a complete misnomer to say “your spirit,” and “God’s Spirit” as if to make a distinction between the two. The scripture clearly says that they are no longer two, but one.
Notice also that he doesn’t say that God put His Spirit into you in place of your dead spirit. One verse in Colossians makes it sound that way (“For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Col 3:2), but Paul’s repeated reference to the new “self” indicates, along with this verse, that you have not been removed or replaced, but rather, regenerated.
God loved you and wanted to preserve all your individuality, every facet of your personality, and so He didn’t discard your true self, He joined Himself to you. All He discarded was the sin and brokenness that kept you in fear of revealing your true self; kept you afraid of being who He made you to be.
Why would God discard the very thing for which He paid the Sum of all His riches, Jesus? Why would He eradicate the one creation that contained His own image and glory? You are the crown of His creation and the treasure at the center of His plan of redemption and glory, the reward of His suffering and sacrifice.
You have not lost one ounce of individuality. In fact, the most exciting, unique, interesting, creative, bold, free-spirited people I know are people who know the stuff I’m teaching you. Since I began to see myself the way God sees me, I am so much more free to be myself than I ever was in my religious days.
God doesn’t want you to conform to some mold and be a good little Christian boy scout. That’s just what religious people want you to do. God wants you to be more of an individual, more unique than you can even imagine. Jesus was a natural radical, a sincere rebel, an easy revolutionary, and He created you to be the same way.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
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