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14/05/2012 1 John 3:1

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

“We serve a God who is the first and the last. The beginning and the end. The keeper of creation and the creator of all. He’s the architect of the universe and the manager of all time. He always was, always is, always will be… unmoved, unchanged, undefeated and never undone. He was bruised but brought healing. He was pierced but eased pain. He was persecuted, but brought freedom. He was dead and brings life. He is risen and brings power. And He reigns to bring peace. The world can’t understand Him. Armies can’t defeat Him. Schools can’t explain Him and leaders can’t ignore Him. Herod couldn’t kill Him. Hitler couldn’t silence Him. The new age can’t replace Him and Oprah can’t explain Him away. He is light, He is love, He is longevity and He is the Lord. He is goodness and kindness and faithfulness and He is God. He is Holy and righteous and powerful and pure. His ways are right, His word eternal, His will unchanging… and His mind is on us!” - Pricilla Shirer

Can you believe that a God that great would have His mind on us? & not only that, but He has bestowed on us the highest honour possible. In what can only be described as a collision of God’s outrageous love & abundant grace… He calls us Children of God. Sons & daughters of the most high!! That blows my mind a little. It is said that when this verse was being translated, the writer stopped and said, "No, it cannot be; let it be written 'Subjects,' not 'Sons,' for it is impossible we should be called 'the sons of God.'”

Just pause for a moment & think about what this means for your life. This truth should instil an unshakeable confidence in you. Not because of who you are or anything you’ve done, but because of the family you are a part of. Forget the Jones’!! You are a child of the living God, & He is your confidence! What higher honour could have been bestowed? What privilege, what liberty. & what obedience is now owed!

This verse points out the importance of establishing our identity completely in Christ & nothing else… a lesson I learnt the hard way. I used to play a lot of basketball & I was pretty good. I didn’t realise how much I had let it consume my personhood until I tore my anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) & required a knee reconstruction. Two years on & after much pain & physio, I had my first game back… only to tear the ACL in my other knee (requiring yet another knee reconstruction). I was devastated to say the least. What God (not very subtly I might add) taught me during that season was that if I found my identity in anything other than Him, it could be taken from me in an instant.

You are more than your talent, your gifting, your job & you’re relationships. None of these things can define who you are & can be lost or taken from you in a moment. You are also not your brokenness. The love lost, the opportunity missed, the doctors report, the bank balance… none of these things dictate who you are. Don’t allow what’s true for a moment to be true for eternity. You are a daughter/son of the King & you are loved… & that truth can never be lost. If your identity is not founded in Christ, you will easily be uprooted.

Is your identity found completely in God, or are you trusting in your own ability? Do you believe that God would love you enough to consider you family, & does your life reflect this truth? Big challenges, but what a great promise from God!

Jasmin Biddell, 14/05/2012

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Last Week's Verse

30/04/12 - 2 Corinthians 12:9
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. ” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

Prayer is so powerful. It changes things.

I always go for prayer after the Sunday service and every time I submit a prayer request for more grace to keep me keeping on. I have already been given enough grace to help navigate me through recent rapids in my life! That is what’s amazing about His grace. It was amazing enough for the poet and clergyman John Newton to compose the hymn Amazing Grace.

About 18 months, someone described what I was going through as a Job and Joseph season! I have needed to establish a strategy to answer many of the questions people keep asking me. Questions ranging from how I was coping, how my daughter was managing being a teenage mum and the trauma of having a baby born with a chromosome disorder and no eyes, to questions about how my husband’s cancer treatment was progressing. I needed to have ready answers.

My answer is His grace carries me. It is interesting that when I thought all the above was a major set back, little did I know that it was a set up for an increased level of intimacy and clarity of Father’s voice! Like Paul, I have heard Him say to me, in the middle of all my tantrums, which have been many.“Winnie, my GRACE is enough to carry you through it all and it is ALL you need.”

Grace- what amazing support!

The Lord told Paul that His grace, (favour, loving kindness and mercy) is sufficient. It is sufficient in its sufficiency, enabling us to bear the troubles in our humanness and it is sufficient against all danger. His strength and power is made perfect (fulfilled, completed and shows them most effective) in our weakness. The power of Christ, the strength which He gives, is His power manifested in supporting us in trials. So we do not lose anything by suffering and afflictions. Instead we gain His favour.

So Paul gloried in his weaknesses rather than in his revelations so that the strength of Christ may rest on him, (or cover him all over like a tent and dwell on him). Think of His presence covering you all over, right in the middle and height of your trials, afflictions and weaknesses? Think of His presence enveloping us and causing us to exist in a divine glory bubble? The Lord’s favour is more than a compensation for all that we endure.

Glorying in infirmities

Paul was not just glorying in suffering, as we may think today. The reason he took pleasure in suffering was because he knew the Lord's strength would be manifest in his weakness and the Lord would use this to bring glory to His name.
An example of this is found in Acts 14:19-21. Paul was stoned and left for dead at Lystra. If he wasn't dead, he was so close to it that those who wanted to kill him thought he was dead and left. But as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up and came into the city. . .(Acts 14:20). The next day he traveled (probably walked) over 20 miles to Derbe. This wasn't bad for a man who had been killed the day before.
It had to be God's strength that enabled Paul to travel the day after his stoning. There were probably cuts, bruises, and swollen parts of his body that testified to what he had been through, yet he didn't miss a day ministering for the Lord. Certainly this was an even stronger witness of God's power to those he ministered to in Derbe. God's strength overcame Paul's weakness by far.

The strength to bear all when the Lord takes over

In persecution, the Lord doesn't deliver us, He strengthens us to be able to bear all things, thereby bringing glory to Himself and conviction to our persecutors. The Lord is telling Paul that when he gives up, then the Lord takes over. Any time we stop trusting in ourselves and trust in God, He shows His strength. It is when we lean on our own abilities that we get in trouble. Paul had more reason to trust in himself than his critics did. He had the better credentials. But he had learned the lesson of not trusting in himself. He had counted all his accomplishments as manure (Phil. 3:7-8), and he had become totally dependent upon Christ living through him (Gal. 2:20). He had learned to be weak in himself so that Christ could be strong in him.

The Lord's power delivers us from things such as sin, sickness, poverty. That is not to say that Christians never sin, never get sick, or never have financial problems. But the Lord's power is always available to bring us victory over all these things. However, concerning persecution and the many day to day problems that we encounter, the Lord hasn't provided deliverance from these, but rather the strength to endure. We have to put on the mind of Christ and be transformed by the renewal of our minds. We also have the motivation to change the things that we can change, the strength of Christ to persevere through the things we can't, and wisdom to know the difference.