Thursday, May 28, 2009

Reality 1, 2, 3

Before I can walk in really healthy relationships with those I love, I must be settled in my primary relationship: the relationship with my heavenly Father. To do this, I must accept and believe three immutable Realities.

Reality Number One
As a child of God, I am secure and accepted in his love and by his adoption. I am loved and received not because of my actions, but in spite of them. Nothing can change how the Father feels about me as his child. Nothing I can do can challenge or breach this relationship, because God created it through Christ Jesus. When I sin, does that change his perspective on me? Absolutely not, because the blood of Jesus does not change and the character of the Father does change. My place in the heart of the Father came from the work of Jesus and his work alone. I must accept by faith my place in the Father.

Reality Number Two
What my life looks like now is going to change. The Father intends to conform me to the likeness of Jesus. This means discipline, chastisement, and a standard that I can only reach by the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit in my life. Just as the Father’s love is immutable, so is his holiness. He will make me into something I am not now. This pressure will never stop. The Father will never wash his hands of his sons and say, “Enough! I’m tired of fooling with you!” Nor while we are in this body will we ever hear, “It is finished!” What I am at this time will come under constant challenge from the Holy Spirit. The flesh hates the hand of the Spirit and it always will. This conflict is part of setting aside the corruptible and taking on the incorruptible. I must accept by faith that the Father’s correction is not his rejection.

Reality Number Three

No matter how severe the discipline or struggle I experience in Reality Number Two, it will never in the tiniest degree change Reality Number One. Reality Number Three is my place of rejoicing! No matter what can of worms the Father opens in my life, he loves me not one bit less. He does not recoil from me in my sin, even while he confronts it. He embraces me in my filth and washes me clean at the same time. This is the paradox of love that I must accept by faith.

All three of the Realities are received by faith. We must choose to believe. Nothing in the natural realm can cement such things in our hearts. But when we do believe, nothing in the natural realm can take these Realities from us.

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