very good

Your Identity

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Tonight, Mike Glenn spoke from Matthew 22:34-40. Those wacky Pharisees were at it again, trying to trap Jesus through one of their questions.

“Teacher,” they asked. “Which  commandment in the law is the greatest?”

As usual, Jesus saw through their smokescreen and gave a brilliant answer. Love God with everything that’s in you and love your neighbor as yourself.

For years, I never really thought about the “as yourself” part of the command. But for you to truly love others as God would have you to, you have to love yourself. It goes against a lot of what we’ve been taught about how loving yourself is wrong and prideful.

Loving yourself is simply seeing yourself the way God does.

Mike talked about how when God created you, He said, “It is very good.” Imagine a world-class chef tasting his own masterpiece and declaring, ‘Ahhhh, it is verrrry gooood” and you have an idea of what this means.

God looked at you and was pleased. He didn’t shrug His shoulders and say something like “Eh, close enough.” He said you were very good.”

Mike went on to say that when you find your identity not in what your enemies or friends or even you say about you but what God truly says about you, it changes the way you live. It changes the way you love yourself, others, and– ultimately– God.

That’s something that I’m still learning, but I’m to the point where I have days where I see myself as the Beloved of God and let that be what defines me. And those days are becoming more and more frequent.

So let me remind you once again. You are not your spotty resume. You are not your latest failed marriage. You are not the guy who’s still trying to find himself and still not having a clue about who he is. You are not whatever failures or  fiascos you’ve had in the past.

You have worth because you were created in the image of God and then prized highly enough for God to send Jesus to die on your behalf. You are the Beloved.

 

#notugly

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“For it’s by God’s grace that you have been saved. You receive it through faith. It was not our plan or our effort. It is God’s gift, pure and simple. You didn’t earn it, not one of us did, so don’t go around bragging that you must have done something amazing. For we are the product of His hand, heaven’s poetry etched on lives, created in the Anointed, Jesus, to accomplish the good works God arranged long ago” (Ephesians 2:8-10).

Maybe you don’t like the way you look.

Maybe you have a hard time looking at yourself in the mirror or watching yourself in videos or pictures.

Maybe you’ve felt like no one with eyes could ever be attracted to you.

Maybe you’ve thought to yourself, ” If only I could just lose 20 pounds” “If only I had a different face” “If only I were taller”. . . the list goes on.

Can I share something with you?

God loves you just the way you are. He looks at you and says, “Very good.”

In the above mentioned verses, the Apostle Paul says that we are God’s poiema, His workmanship, His finished product, His masterpiece. I really like how The Voice puts it– “heaven’s poetry etched on lives.”

You are not ugly. You are beautiful because God says so. He looks at you and delights in what He sees. And as the old saying goes, God don’t make no junk.

Remember that the next time you don’t like your own reflection. Remember that you are an image-bearer of God, reflecting a part of God that people will only see when they see you.

You may not be a 10 in the world’s eyes, but never forget that to Jesus, you’re to die for.

My Creed (A Work in Progress)

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Note: I don’t intend this to be in any way universal or a replacement for any of the historical creeds that have served the Church so well down through the centuries. I do think it’s a good thing to formulate your own beliefs and to be able to summarize all that you believe. It’s vitally important to KNOW what you believe and to be able to explain it to someone else. So here goes:

I believe God created the heavens and the earth and called it good.

I believe God created male and female and called it very good.

I believe the woman was deceived and the man soon followed after and sin entered the world.

I believe in that moment, death entered the world.

I believe that God became one of us and came to dwell among us.

I believe He died in my place for my sins so that I might live with Him.

I believe He rose again to defeat death once and for all.

I believe He offers rest to the weary, hope to the despairing, and life to all who call on His name.

I believe that whoever calls on His name will be saved from death to eternal life.

I believe He is returning soon for His own.

I believe in the end, Love wins.

I Made This!

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I made a pumpkin hazelnut cheesecake today.

Normally, I am not a culinary-type. I enjoy good food, but I am normally not a fan of creating new good foods. I’d rather eat someone else’s cooking for the most part.

But I got wild and daring. I found a recipe for pumpkin hazelnut cheesecake online and said to myself (not out loud), “What the heck? Why not?” Even when the recipe called for hazelnut flour, which I was unaware even existed until I saw it in bold letters on the printout.

So I followed the recipe to the letter, step by step, hoping I wouldn’t blow up the kitchen or inadvertently create a new life form out of the ingredients.

It is a good feeling knowing that you have created something. Whether it’s a song or a poem or a book or a photo, it’s an amazing rush knowing that you have put something new out into the universe.

I think that when God made us, he didn’t marvel at his own creative skills. He didn’t prance about the garden of Eden yelling how awesome a job he did. He simply said, “This is very good.”

Get that? He said that YOU are very good. Not because you pull $1 million a year or because you’re in the 100 most beautiful people list. Simply because God made you and liked what he saw.

OK, I’m not sure how I got from cheesecake to theology, but roll with it. Remember that whatever anybody else says about you or how they assess your worth, God has already rated you “very good,” and that is ultimately the only opinion that really matters.

So, enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner. Eat lots of turkey (or tofurkey or chicken or tofu or whatever makes you happy). Get that second helping of dessert. Heck, try ’em all. Holiday calories don’t count (or at least I read that on the internet, so it’s got to be true).

And remember you are precious and unique and chosen by God himself.