I’m back! I’m excited to be back. Excited to share with you the written words of a brother in Christ being vulnerable with the Lord as he journaled. Just like you and me, he is on a journey with God wrestling with thoughts and emotions and then God speaks providing wisdom through a word picture. Transformation is happening; molding and shaping the heart. I was so encouraged and challenged by it, I could say more. But rather, let his words, ultimately the Father’s words perhaps grab a hold of your heart and mind as well.
I meant to write yesterday but it turned out to be a very rough day, I was too busy bemoaning my old way of life and missing my old addictive behavior to care anything for the ways of God or enjoying His presence.
This morning I went outside and talked with the Lord and He showed me the folly of my anger, bitterness and rebellion, I wish to write the lesson down here so I don’t forget it.
Imagine I and some friends were out on the street, and we saw a beggar clothed in the filthiest most tattered rags imaginable. Now, a king comes walking by and seeing the man in rags, walks over to him and gives him the finest suit of clothes, in just his size, free of charge and undeserved. Some weeks later we see the man again, weeping loudly and bemoaning the loss of his rags. After a time the king passes by and the man jumps up and accosts him, demanding the return of his filthy tattered rags. If I saw this I would think the man was a lunatic and would probably turn to my friend and express the feeling to them as well.
When I was saved by the Grace of God I was given a seal of approval that would allow me to enter the kingdom, I was also given a royal decree, decree declaring my change of status from a slave to sin marked for death, to a royal heir, along with a robe of spotless white through the blood of Christ.
When I was baptized into Christ it signified the death of the old man and the end of his power over me, it was a funeral. About a week after the funeral I began to miss the old man, cruel and deceptive as he was. I dug up the casket, brought it to my home and opened the lid. For nigh unto a year now I have been hosting an open casket funeral that has only one mourner…. Myself.
.
I have wept and raged over the old man’s death, pacing the room and pulling my hair and tearing at my clothes, occasionally pausing long enough to hurl imprecations and accusations at my big brother Jesus, who watches me with a look of sadness in his eyes as I insist to first pace the room then look in the casket at the grotesque face of the old man over and over and over again, ignoring his gentle appeal; “Come, sit beside me, rest and be comforted”
As if this weren’t bad enough, sometimes I take the corpse of the old man and chain it to my back, loudly proclaiming how much I miss him and how badly I wish he was still alive and how much happier I would be if he was. The old man is dead, he reels of decay, everyone can smell him but me and they must think I’m crazy for carrying him around with me, just like the man bemoaning the loss of his filthy rags.
I have taken off my pure white robe, laid it aside and put on mourners clothes. I have set aside the wondrous new song I was given by my Lord on the day of my conversion, and have instead taken up a haunting and tragic elegy lamenting the death of the old man. I have laid down my certificate of royalty given to me by the King of Kings Himself, and have picked up a certificate of death which I look at often, tearfully with many sighs and moans. And, most tragically, I have traded the joy of my salvation, for needless pain, sorrow, anger and bitterness. I am royalty, an heir to my father The King and all that He has, and yet my sorrow and bitterness prevents me from seeing it.
I could not bury the old man myself at the time of my conversion and I cannot do so now. Christ buried him for me before and He will do so again but I chose to dig him up and it is I who must consent to his being buried again. The Lord will gladly take the corpse off my back, put it back in the coffin where it belongs, close the coffin lid and lock it, and bury him again. My Lord is more than willing and able to do these things, the only question that remains is, will I allow him to do them? Will I consent to let the old man be buried again this time with the intent of never digging him up?
Anytime I choose I can lay aside the garments of mourning and put my pure white robe back on. I can cease my song of mourning and instead take up my new song, singing it with joy and thankfulness. I can file away the death certificate of my old nature and instead hold fast to my birthright. And, most importantly, I can lay down my sorrow and anger and realize that I’m a son of God and an heir to His riches, which make all the wealth of this world seem as nothing by comparison, and enter into the joy of my Lord.
Will I consent to my Lord’s will? Or will I continue to mourn the death of the old man? The choice, it seems, is mine. Mine, and everyone else’s who would walk the Christian path. Jesus please grant me the grace to do this.
~Chris
Rescued Identity 