Thinking Archives - Page 7 of 7 - Purposeful Learning

Written last evening.

It’s been one of those beautiful blessed days. We went to the domain today (like a park, but out in the country and it isn’t as trimmed and polished as one in town), and I basked in the beautiful green, green scenery and the blue, blue sky. It was indescribably gorgeous. I love spring days!

Through different Bible studies lately—what others have pointed out to me, and more personal studies, I’ve had some fascinating thoughts come up. Since I have the chance tonight, I thought I’d jot them down and share.

There are two things I have in mind especially—God’s righteousness and overwhelming goodness.

Just recently, while reading through a study on “justice” in a great book named The Power for True Success published by IBLP, there was a fascinating thought mentioned. This book is VERY in-depth, and I rarely comprehend everything they’re trying to teach. However, one point stuck out to me. I know I’ve heard the teaching before, but I never fully understood all that it implies.

God's Righteousness and Goodness pic 2 — It was so pretty! Love the spring colors. Also had to get a picture of my handsome oldest brother.

Once we are Christians, in God’s eyes, we are completely covered in Christ’s righteousness. This means that all those sins we’ve done, all those bad thoughts and cruelty…everything is covered by the blood and we are counted righteous.

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. — 2 Corinthians 5:21

We know Jesus was of perfect character and perfect righteousness (He “knew no sin”!). And yet He was willing to take upon Himself the sins of the world, and substitute His sinless life in our place, so that we could have His righteousness.

Completely covered is, in my mind, like one of the burqas you see sometimes. No trace left of who is actually underneath—that’s how much Jesus loves us!

Wow.

Then there’s this whole thing on God’s overwhelming goodness. You know those verses in John 10 about the good shepherd? As my friend Rachel recently pointed out, there are some golden promises in verses 28–29. Jesus says here that He has given us—all those who hear His voice and follow Him (notice, “follow” is an action word)—eternal life. Furthermore, “neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” No one.

So we’ve got a double-whammy here. When we accept Jesus at the cross, and continue to follow Him, God immediately imputes Jesus’ righteousness onto us. Like a burqa, except instead of being a hindrance and cumbersome weight it’s pure, beautiful freedom. Freedom from the ugly desires and lusts of the world, and the immense gift of someone who truly cares for us and will help us when we turn to Him (and often before we even think to ask, or know we need to ask!).

What an amazing God we serve!

(Or, in other words, welcome to the sometimes-crazy-almost-random side of my brain.)

There’s this thing in the blogging world that crops up every once in a while. Although it goes by different names, it all boils down to one thing in the end . . . being real.

On Being Real

Every once in a while, people will post posts that talk about their failure to write because of fear—fear of censure, or fear that they aren’t cut out to do what they’re doing, or another of the one hundred and one reasons that, in the end, simply mean that they haven’t—or haven’t been willing to—“face up”.

To be quite honest, I really, really admire those people. Whenever they post a post like that, they’re opening themselves up to the whole world, saying “nope, I’m not perfect and yes, it’s okay if you turn your guns on me too.”

That takes courage.

But I have to wonder—even if they do dedicate themselves to being real, to sharing the hard, genuine, sometimes even harsh truths about themselves and their world, how long is it going to stay that way? What about all their previous writings—does that mean they weren’t presenting their true “selves” then, but instead were presenting the mask that they want others to see and know them by?

I can’t answer those questions.

I can say, however, that sharing the real stuff—who you really are underneath—is sometimes incredibly difficult. Okay, to tell you the truth—sometimes I wonder who I, myself, really am! Why did I decide to do it that way? What’s my hidden driving motive? Is it the true me that’s doing this, or my desire to please someone else?

I’m committed to sharing things the way they are; not the way I’d like them to be or the way I believe others would like to see them. I don’t always get there, but that’s my goal.

So what about you? Are you committed to being real too? How do you share the “real” side?