When I Forget Who I am in Christ

This is an adapted personal insight:.  Please, do not forget who you are in Christ!

When I Forget Who I Am In Christ

by Joanne Jung

When I forget who I am in Christ I doubt myself 

and I don’t always act with the characteristics of Christ.

I compare myself to my Christian friends and their relationships.

I get angry easier and I don’t forgive, as I should.

My relationships end up strained especially with my family 

and I hide things from my friends.

And because of the strain on my relationships I get upset,

which doesn’t help at all 

and I don’t want to admit my feelings or my wrong actions.

I essentially turn inward and “self – destruct”…

I have realized that when I forget who I am in Christ, 

I am a darker person.

I am angrier, and I feel all alone…

My relationships are fragile when I forget who I am in Christ,

I am short with people, I brush them aside.

When I forget who I am in Christ, I am ugly.

I can’t control my emotions and I seek to find temporary

and unneeded satisfaction in unnecessary things…

I close up my insides and lock it so no one can come in.

My relationships barely hold on by a thread. 

I am seriously and ultimately empty.

Low, down in the pits, a dull nagging that everything is never enough,

and just overall lost in what I am supposed to do.

Most of my relationships will also decline 

or become “me” or “sin” centered.

I tend to be frustrated and in a perpetual hectic mode 

in order to please my own selfish desires.

My relationships with people are bad.

I tend to be more selfish 

and less considerate of other people’s feelings.

I begin to be judgmental of things that are minor 

and try to challenge people in unhealthy ways.

When I forget who I am in Christ, I’m easily irritated with my family.

When I forget that I am complete in Christ, 

I seek fulfillment from the wrong things,

I seek to define my identity based on how I perceive myself, 

which is never satisfying.

 I am a lot more depressed, a lot angrier, more solitary, 

and definitely more confused. I look dead.

I don’t want to open up or become transparent with my friends.

I fight and argue with my friends. I hold grudges more and longer.

When I forget who I am in Christ, 

it brings out the worst in me (it brings out me).

I have a short fuse. I put myself first.

I am too proud to admit that I have issues that need to be addressed.

I fail to trust the Lord.

Then when I go out, 

I put on a mask to hide the reality of my struggles. 

I am like a tomb.

Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God,

but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

Romans 7:24-25

For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form,

and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;

Colossians 2:9-10

Ten Reasons Why We Should Love The Church - #10

Here is the tenth and final consideration that I will give as to why we should love the church.  To recap, we have seen that...

1.  Loving the church brings glory to God

2.  Loving the church demonstrates faithfulness to the Word of God

3.  Loving the church is one of our greatest witnesses to the world

4.  Loving the church unity in the body of Christ

5.  Loving the church stimulates meaningful and vibrant corporate worship of God

6.  Loving the church generates solid and biblical edification

7.  Loving the church brings about a genuine caring and sharing in the body of Christ 

8.  Loving the church creates and environment for church growth 

9.  Loving the church creates a godly excitement in the fellowship

 

And now, number ten...

10. Loving the church keeps the focus on Jesus! 

As Colossians 1:18 clearly states, Jesus is to come to have first place in everything.  And being the Head and Lord of the Church means that the focus of the church is to be upon Jesus; upon knowing Him as well as serving Him.

Churches that get caught up in divisions and struggles can trace the origin of such things to one thing...selfishness.  As with a marriage where the husband and wife are to look to serve one another rather than simply their own needs and wants, so too, in the church, believers are to put the Lord and His desires first.  How many heartaches would be avoided if we would put the attention on the Lord's will.  Then things like personal preferences, self-seeking agendas, even our prideful egos would be forgotten.

As a church learns to love biblically, then the focus will be on Jesus.  As Paul said in Philippians 2:3-4...

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

Why are we to have this outlook?  How is this keeping the focus on the Lord?  Because of what Paul wrote next in verse 5...

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,

This was the attitude of Christ!  This was the focus of Christ!  This was and is the will of Christ!  Without a doubt, the church is to be a place that this characterized by grace and truth; a place where people are accepted as they are, but also told like it is!  The love we are to have for the Church is not some sappy human sentiment; nor is it some fluctuating emotionalism.  Love is rooted and grounded in the person and work of Jesus Christ.  Let me remind you once again of my working definition of love....

Love is a one-way, unconditional act of the will that seeks the highest good of another, regardless of the cost and all for the glory of God.

Love for the Church is a decision you must made.  This love will involve sacrifice (love without sacrifice is no love at all).  This love for the Church is only possible by the grace of God and must be steeped in the truth of God.  Love for the Church is nothing short of love for Jesus.  You CANNOT love Jesus and not love His Church!

May our prayer be that of Paul's for the Church at Thessalonica and recorded in 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10...

Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more...

May it be our ambition to excel still more in the love of Christ so that we might, as the Church, be everything God intends for us to be to His glory!

God First

"Wherever there are competing concerns in your life, be sure you always put your relationship to God first" - Oswald Chambers.

Or as Jesus has taught - "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." (Matthew 6:33).

I can't believe what a propensity I have to think that food, clothing, money, or other concerns should take precedence over my relationship to the Lord.  "Oh Lord, grant me a heart that longs for You first!"

Christianity is Discipleship

If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, 

and take up his cross daily and follow Me. (Luke 9:23)

There can be no doubt from reading the New Testament that definition of Christianity is "discipleship" - a submitting to and following after Jesus Christ as Lord.  While we will all struggle with following Jesus perfectly due to our sin nature, the genuine desire and overall characteristic of the Christian life is a seeking and striving to be like Jesus.  Any profession of being a Christian without an ongoing practice of being a Christian is deficient mutation of genuine, biblical Christianity.

James M. Boice articulated this well when he wrote:

There is a fatal defect in the life of Christ’s church in the twentieth century: a lack of true discipleship. Discipleship means forsaking everything to follow Christ. But for many of today’s supposed Christians—perhaps the majority—it is the case that while there is much talk about Christ and even much furious activity, there is actually very little following of Christ Himself. And that means in some circles there is very little genuine Christianity. Many who fervently call Him ‘Lord, Lord’ are not Christians (Matthew 7:21)...There are several reasons that the situation I have described is common in today’s church. The first is a defective theology that has crept over us like a deadening fog. This theology separates faith from discipleship and grace from obedience. It teaches that Jesus can be received as one’s Savior without being received as one’s Lord...Discipleship in not a supposed second step in Christianity, as if one first became a believer in Jesus and then, if he chooses, a disciple. From the beginning, discipleship is involved in what it means to be a Christian....Is ‘faith’ minus commitment a true biblical faith?...If faith without works is dead—how much truer is it that faith without commitment is dead...True faith involves these elements: knowledge...heart response...and commitment, without which ‘faith’ is no different from the assent of the demons who ‘believe...and shudder’ (James 2:19) (James Montgomery Boice, Christ’s Call to Discipleship (Chicago: Moody, 1986), pp. 13, 14, 16, 21).

The Word of God teaches us that Christianity is discipleship, a learning and following the precepts and practices of our Lord Jesus Christ.  May we apply the great desire of the Psalmist who wrote in Psalm 119:34-38:

34 Give me understanding, that I may observe Your law And keep it with all my heart. 35 Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, For I delight in it. 36 Incline my heart to Your testimonies And not to dishonest gain. 37 Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, And revive me in Your ways. 38 Establish Your word to Your servant, As that which produces reverence for You.

Blessings!

Ed

Glory to God in the Highest - a praise of salvation!

As a Christmas present, my mother-in-law gave me a book of Spurgeon Sermons. The first series of sermons were, in fact, Christmas messages and the first message, which set the tone for the book, was based on Luke 2:14, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

What I find so wonderfully amazing about Spurgeon's preaching is how easily he understands and links the glory of God and the gospel in his messages. Spurgeon's concern is always that God be recognized as Almighty Sovereign, particularly in salvation, and that man recognize his own need of all-grace, all-mercy, and all-effort on the part of this benevolent God to even have the hope of eternal life. In other words, if God did not act on His own for His own, His "own" would never have believed, would never have repented, and would never experience the bliss of salvation in Jesus Christ. All glory to God who first loved us and first opened our eyes to behold the beauty of Christ as Savior and who first instilled in us the very faith to come to Christ (John 6:44).

The following excerpt so firmly communicates what is at stake if we undermine the truth of Jonah 2:9, that salvation comes from the Lord. May I remind you again that this was found in a Christmas message entitled "The First Christmas Carol." This is no side issue for even in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ we find the sweet doctrines of grace, of God's goodwill toward man so evident. Please be in awe of the great truths communicated here as well as wary of any system of thinking or theology that undermines these biblical truths. May our longing be that God receives all the glory for salvation, for as the Scriptures say of God...

Revelation 4:6

Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.

And of Jesus it says:

Revelation 5:9

"Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

Spurgeon spoke:

But, let me say one word here before I go away from this point. We must learn from this, that if salvation glorifies God, glorifies him in the highest degree, and makes the highest creatures praise him, this one reflection may be added—then, that doctrine, which glorifies man in salvation cannot be the gospel. For salvation glorifies God.

The angels were no Arminians, they sang, "Glory to God in the highest." They believe in no doctrine which uncrowns Christ, and puts the crown upon the head of mortals. They believe in no system of faith which makes salvation dependent upon the creature, and, which really gives the creature the praise, for what is it less than for a man to save himself, if the whole dependence of salvation rests upon his own free will?

No, my brethren; there may be some preachers, that delight to preach a doctrine that magnifies man; but in their gospel angels have no delight. The only glad tidings that made the angels sing, are those that put God first, God last, God midst, and God without end, in the salvation of his creatures, and put the crown wholly and alone upon the head of him that saves without a helper. "Glory to God in the highest," is the angels' song.

May we sing with the angels and give all glory to God for so great a salvation as found in Jesus Christ our Lord!

God Sent His Son to be Human!

What makes "Christmas" so wonderfully unique is not that God sent His Son to the earth as a "baby" but rather as a "human" - the incarnation - God becomes man. To emphasize Jesus coming as a baby only confuses unbelievers, for all begin as babies. What makes Jesus so wonderfully awesome is that He came to be human, beginning as a baby. Coming as a human then begs the evangelistic question, "What was He before becoming human?" He was and continues to be Emmanuel - God with us. There the gospel begins to unfold.