Discovering The Real Me Part 2 The Current Me verse the Intended Me
Welcome to the second part of our series: Discovering the Real Me.
Last time we learned that the scripture reveals that every human being is hand
crafted by God and that each of us are all fearfully and wonderfully made.
But sin has marred us and we are not the people God intended for us
to be.
We talked about exercising faith in Jesus.
Faith is belief and trust that motivates us to action.
The action of faith is
Acknowledging that we are not who we are intended to be,
believing that only Jesus can make us the way we are intended
to be,
committing to becoming the person God created us to be,
and then asking God to accept our little faith and receive us as
His own and enter into this partnership of transformation.
As a believer you are on a spiritual journey of becoming.
If you recall we said that you are on a journey in righteousness.
Life is all about righteousness,
Righteousness is all about right relationships,
Right relationships are all about love.
So life is all about loving the way God intended.
Right now you are either languishing on your spiritual journey or you are
flourishing on your spiritual journey.
I encouraged you to ask God to examine you, to search you, and then to tell
you if you are currently languishing or flourishing in becoming the
person He intended.
I am going to assume that even though there has been progress in you
spiritual journey, that you have noticed that there is a gap between the
current version of who you are and the God’s intended version of
you.
Would you like to learn how to close the gap?
Its seems like all my life I’ve been trying to close the gap and
I want to share with you what I consider to be the most
effective way of closing that gap.
Today I want you to get a glimpse of the person God intends for you to be,
Discover your biggest hindrance to becoming that person,
tell you how it is possible to close the gap between the
current me and the intended me,
and finally encourage you to do something very
unnatural.
Who is this person God intended for me to be?
Of course to answer that question I have to speak in generalities,
I have to paint a portrait using large brush strokes.
The you God intends for you to be is first and foremost a person like His
Son.
2 Corinthians 3:17-18 (NIV)
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
As you travel this spiritual journey you start with your current self and
become more like Jesus.
Last time I mentioned stained glass windows.
When I was in Ireland, Carol and I enjoyed some of the old churches,
with their beautiful stained glass windows.
As long as the sun was shining through stained glass its
radiant.
But with no sunshine, they become dark empty places
in the wall.
As you flourish on your spiritual journey more and more of God shines
through your life, you begin to radiate with the Lord’s glory.
We can use the word glory in a couple of ways.
We can say glory and mean beauty and majesty.
We can say glory and mean praise and honor and distinction.
We can also say glory and mean a physical manifestation of
God.
So when the Apostle Paul tells the believers at Corinth that they
reflect the Lords glory he’s telling them that they are starting to
look like Jesus.
As we proceed on this spiritual journey we are being transformed with
ever-increasing glory, or in other words as we mature in our
faith, we close the gap between the current version of
me and the intended version,
we become more like Jesus.
If the intended version of you looks like Jesus I’m sure you’re wondering
what Jesus looks like.
That’s a discovery I want for you to make on your own.
Read the Gospel according to Matthew and the Gospel according to
John:
ask yourself what kind of person was Jesus,
what motivated him,
why did He do the things He did,
how did He treat others?
Then read Galatians 5:22 and know that the fruit of the
Spirit is also the character qualities of Jesus.
Finally read 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 and realize that this is
the way Jesus relates to people.
God’s intended version of you looks like Jesus.
Are you beginning to see a gap between the current me and the
intended me?
One more thing needs mentioning before we move on to consider closing the
gap.
God hand crafted you; we learned last time that God made us unique.
So as you become more and more like Jesus,
You become more and more uniquely like Him.
God is a handcrafter not a mass producer.
There is something woven into your DNA that makes
your life a singular expression of His.
You are that stained glass window,
As the gap closes between the current version of
you and the intended version of you,
the glory of God shines uniquely through
you.
This sounds a little funny,
But as you become the person God intended for you to be,
You become “youier.” (Ortberg, p. 40)
You become a unique expression of the glory of
God.
“God’s plan is for you to become the best version of you,
but right now there are two versions of you. (Ortberg, p. 37)
There is the current you and the intended you:
How do you close the gap?
There are a couple of things that won’t work.
First thing that won’t close the gap is guilt and shame.
I think of this as an unconscious approach.
We don’t realize that the “shoulds,” and” musts,” and “oughts” are not the
motivations of freedom.
2 Corinthians 3:17 (NIV)
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Driven by “shoulds, musts and oughts” you can’t close the gap,
So you feel defeated.
You feel that something is wrong with you.
You may think that Christianity isn’t working for you.
You can become a sucker for legalism.
Follow the rules and that will close the gap.
You can become a sucker for hypocrisy.
Talk the talk but you fail at walking the walk.
You can become a sucker for judging others.
You put others down for their failure to overcome what you have no
problem with.
Guilt and shame will not close the gap,
It will only widen it.
If you’ve been trying to close the gap through guilting and
shaming yourself you need to repent,
you need to ask God to show you the freedom of
His grace and love.
Second thing that won’t close the gap is will power.
This is a more active approach.
You see the gap and get to work trying to close it.
That work usually takes on the form of doing more and trying harder.
You know that your practice of the seven habits of a disciple,
Bible study, prayer, fellowship, service, worship, obedience and
contemplation leads to encounters with God that
transform you.
But you never seem to get around to doing it consistently.
So you make your New Year’s resolution to change only to find
yourself back in your old habits..
“Our habits will always beat willpower alone in the long run.”
(Ortberg, p. 65)
I’ll be good this time, I’ll do better this time, I’ll keep my promises this time,
We try, try harder, try our hardest, only to be overcome, time and time again.
We grow fatigued in our efforts,
We quit, we give up trying.
Until the conviction of the Holy Spirit motivates us to do
something about the languishing state we are in.
Then its back on the tread mill.
A lot of effort that goes nowhere in closing the gap between the
current you and the intended you.
What you really need is inner transformation.
Repent of utilizing your own resources and seek God to do for
you what you can not do for yourself—change.
Third thing that won’t close the gap is your signature sin.
Being unique, you have our own line of personal sins.
You have a signature sin,
And Satan is constantly tempting you with it,
And more often than not you fall to the temptation.
There is grudge holding, you don’t forgive you get even.
And if you can’t get even you make em pay, you make everyone pay.
There is greed, you like stuff, you collect stuff, you horde stuff,
Can’t get enough stuff.
There is being a procrastinator, putting things off because you prefer
Margarita Ville to responsibility.
There is pride, when things go wrong its always somebody else’s fault.
Better to tell a lie to manipulate than own up to the truth.
So many things are below me as I ride my high horse.
I can all by myself, don’t tell me what to do.
There’s self-indulgence, you want it you go out and take it.
Porn fits under this real well, lust, sexual immorality, debauchery,
Entertaining yourself with this impure stuff.
There is wanting the newest, the best, the better that somebody else has.
Image is everything, the right clothes, the right car, the right job,
the right home address, the right vacations, the right perks.
Just gotta have em and being miserable when you can’t.
There is over-consumption.
How much is enough? Just a little more.
How much food do you throw away in the course of a week?
How many sets of clothes do you own?
How much energy do you consume?
Signature sins, and lets not forget our habits and attachments and addictions
that continue to deter, damage and destroy right relationships.
Keep indulging your signature sin and the gap between the current you and
the intended you will remain.
Maybe you’ve noticed that you can’t guilt and shame our way out of
signature sins, trying to be good won’t cut it.
You can’t by force of will overcome signature sins,
you need God to change you so that fundamentally you
no longer care to indulge them any longer.
Only way to close the gap between the current you and the intended you is
to live with the Spirit of God flowing through you.
“The only way to become the person God made you to be is to live
with the Spirit of God flowing through you like a river of living water.”
(Ortberg, p. 39)
John 7:38-39 (NIV)
Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.
Carol and I were rafting down the American River in central California,
We just shot through some rapids and our adventure guide said if we wanted
we could jump in the river and experience the rapids close up and
personal now was the time to jump.
She knew the river, knew it was safe enough to get into the water,
and I had a life jacket securely fastened so I jumped in.
The current grabbed me before my head broke water.
And I was in the flow, the river pushing me along a
whole lot faster than I expected.
Didn’t have to do a thing but keep my head above the water and
down the river I went.
I didn’t have control I was being carried along by a
force much more powerful than I.
God closes the gap between your current self and your intended self the same way.
The river of living water is the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit will move you towards God’s best version of you.
As you flow in the Spirit the gap closes.
The natural question you ask is how do I get into the flow?
Before I tell you the unnatural answer to that question,
Let me suggest the only prerequisite work that needs to be accomplished is
As a believer
You have got to see the gap,
You got to believe that God wants to close the gap,
You got to want to close the gap
You must be convinced that only God can
close it for you.
Then exercise a little faith and ask God to fill you with the Spirit,
To make you aware that you are already in the flow,
That the Holy Spirit is flowing in you, through you,
Out of you, creating a river of Holiness,
Which transforms you into the person God
intended for you to be.
The natural answer gives you pragmatists something to anchor your thoughts
to.
Now let me tell you the unnatural answer of how you get into the flow.
You don’t do anything.
Instead of doing something you do nothing, you surrender.
Surrender is unnatural.
To surrender you have to give up control.
We love to be in control, to be in charge, to determine our own
destiny, to chart our own course.
To surrender you have to release all you expectations,
And go with the flow trusting that God’s plans for you are incredibly
“mo-betta” than the best you could come up with.
To surrender you have “ to trust that there is a river;
that the river is flowing;
that you’re in it;” (Ortberg, p. 72)
and that God closes the gap as you move with it.
The Apostle Paul spoke of the kind of surrender that allows God to close the gap
between the current you and the intended you.
Galatians 2:20 (NIV)
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Surrendered you are immersed in the Holy Spirit
Surrendered you move with the Holy Spirit.
Surrendered you go where the Holy Spirit takes you.
And where the Holy Spirit will take you is through life
experiences that will close the gap between the current
you and the intended you.
Surrender is unnatural,
We always want to do something.
Surrender is more about being than doing.
Surrender is about being in the Spirit.
Today you’ve gotten a glimpse of the person God intends for you to be.
God intends for you to be uniquely like Jesus.
You discovered three huge hindrances that keep you from becoming the
person God created you to be:
Guilt and Shame, Trying Harder and your Signature Sin.
You now know how God closes the gap between the current version of you
and the His intended version of you.
The gap closes as you continually surrender to the Holy Spirit.
That leaves me with one final task—
Encouraging you to do something very unnatural.
Here’s the unnatural thing I want you to do,
I want you to give up control of your life and surrender to God.
Your surrender allows God to empower you to start closing the gap between
the current me and the intended me.