Crucified

Tonight we had our local Young Life leaders over for their monthly meeting. The idea is for the host family to provide dinner and enjoy fellowship with the leaders, then fade into the background while they meet together.

I made a mistake with the brownie preparation (doubled the recipe which led to VERY thick brownies that had to be baked for 80 minutes!), which turned out to not be such a mistake after all. It allowed me to slip into their meeting just in time to hear Cabell reading Galatians 2 from The Message.

As soon as I heard it I knew the McDonald's playground observation I was planning to post about could wait for another day. This passage is powerful.

Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren't perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was "trying to be good," I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan.

What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.
Galatians 2:17-20 The Message

I know I do not have it in me to be perfect. I know I need God. Yet, each failure--however expected it may be--leaves me feeling like I have let people down. I like to feel responsible and trustworthy. I want God to be pleased with me.

I don't feel like God will give up on me as a result of my sin, I just fear I am making Him look bad--and making myself look like a hypocrite. I want to be who I say am...but who I am is a sinner, saved only by grace. May I never attempt to present myself as anything less. Any good that comes from me is only because of Christ in me--the overflow of His consuming love.

The second part of that passage is something I aspire to be able to honestly pray.

I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God.

I can't pray those words truthfully yet. Too often, my ego is still central. I am not living as one fully crucified. It is embarrassing to admit, but it is somewhat important to me to 'represent God well' and to make Him glad He saved me. (As if!)

"For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." Luke 18:14b NIV

Who knew my difficult brownies would lead to such a deep lesson!