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March 15 - April 16, 2018
life in Christ is one of growing up into this new reality until it fits us. You are not striving to attain it. You are striving to lay hold of what is already yours. You are growing up into it.
The problem with either “just believe the gospel … more” or “just obey your Lord … more” is that alone, they leave us focusing on ourselves as the real agent of change. There’s something we need to do, even if that something is do nothing but believe. Either song, by itself, places us at the center.
Choose Your Own Identity leads us to treat God as “a convenient, yet distant deity.”
to our anxiety, to that old way of trying to justify our existence by our own work. Union with Christ tells us “You have died” to that way of living. To the angst that comes from thinking you’re not allowed to fail, or to the feelings of inadequacy that come from believing you have. To those human questions, Am I significant? Have I done enough? Am I accepted? the answer is “Your life is now hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3 NIV).
Christ marries himself to you, and in a wonderful exchange, you give him all your sins and he gives you all of his righteousness.
On the day either relationship is legalized, you begin to possess the full rights and privileges of a spouse, or a child. But it will take time, even years, for you to fully inhabit your new identity. Think about what brings about this change, however. Does a new wife keep a copy of her marriage license on her bedside and take it up and read it over every morning and evening? It’s true, it’s true, I’m legally married. Wow. No, what turns a legal truth into a living one is living in that new relationship. It’s a product of living out of your new identity. How do we know we are doing that? How
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Jesus will not be an accessory to your identity. Jesus must become the center, which means anything that had been in the center must be displaced. You must be displaced, and this is threatening.
You can exercise your new identity as one who is united to Christ by reframing the conversation inside your head. The constant voice that narrates your life, that begins speaking to your soul when you wake up each morning, naturally talks in terms of “I”—What do I want to do? What does this mean for me? … I think I need to … I … I … I … But you can practice the truth that Christ has married his life to yours by including him as your constant conversation partner. What should we do? What are you trying to teach me?
God’s acceptance of you does not depend on the depth of your understanding that acceptance.
No matter how determined we might be, we can’t change our hearts at the deepest level nor move ourselves forward.
But precisely because it is the real God you are seeking, by definition this means you must give up your right to control him. You can’t control the wind! You are utterly dependent on a power outside of you.
This means the most important periods of your communion with God will almost necessarily be those when you are “not getting anything out of it.” The doldrums. The most important seasons of growth will often be the ones you feel the least growth. The doldrums. They are training you to put your trust in the wind. Waiting for the wind, and being out of control, forces us to let go of our cherished idol of instant gratification. “For God alone my soul waits in silence” (Ps. 62:1).
This is how much God desires communion with you, that what grieves him most is not our sin but our refusing to believe that he is so kind, and that he desires to be with us so much more than we do with him.
The author of Psalm 73 begins his song by saying, “Surely God is good to Israel … But as for me …” (NIV). When you feel like “God may be good in general, or good to others, but not to me,” when God seems distant or against you, and doubt, distrust, and anger have dropped anchor in your heart—how do you abide in Christ then? How do you move toward God when you are disappointed in him?
