The full life!

Hey family,
This past Sunday we have been talking about the full life, the life that BRIMS OVER with good days!  And I wanted to remind us on this midweek day to continue to have right expectations as we walk towards our full life closer and closer each day (or farther and farther) depending on your choice.

What is freedom?
Have you noticed that some days you “fall” and you feel so guilty?
Or so bad that the rest of your day is to be in a mood opposite of rejoicing?
You think “this sucks.”
I was there yesterday.
If we all live by God’s grace, why do we still try to earn His approval by obeying Him?
We will never be perfect at obeying God.
Expect that.
Also, Jesus obeyed God perfectly on our behalf (for us), so that we wouldn’t have to.

Now where does that leave us in our imperfection?  Where does that leave us in our relationship to Jesus.  Is He someone you love and trust knowing that He obeyed perfectly for you?

The question might arise:
“What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply?”
- Roman 6:1

“Absolutely not!
How can we who died to sin still live in it?”
- Romans 6:2

It sucks because we know sin sucks!  Sin makes us greedy, unloving, fearful, and leads to all kinds of actions and thoughts that dishonor the God we profess to love!  It makes us feel divided and numb.  So why would we want to just keep on living in sin if there was a way out?  And not just a way out, but a way free-way out? (Get it? Hehe)

It leaves us in freedom to choose what sort of life we will pursue....FREELY WITH JESUS.

But of course there are some facts about the choices we decide to make.

It’s like a kid wanting to bake a delicious cake.  But instead of the required ingredients they want to use mud, sticks, and pebbles...because that’s all they have and it’s all they really know.  It’s familiar materials to them that they have played with and even enjoyed before.

So when Jesus comes along and says “let me help you make a delicious cake with materials you may not have or are not familiar with” the child might question Him.  Because Jesus is showing the child a new thing.

Let’s say the child decides to give it a shot.  But because his hands are small and stubby whenever he tries to crack the egg, the shells crumble into the bowl. Or whenever he tries to measure a cup of flour it spills on the ground.  The child is so frustrated!  “I can’t do it!”
This inability to do what Jesus says in order to make the cake makes the child feel hopeless, inadequate and quite frustrated with the whole ordeal.  This child doesn’t like feeling like a failure, but this child also wants delicious cake!

If we ended it there, does this story mean that if the child then uses his original plan of mud, sticks, and pebbles he will get the delicious cake he wanted?  Obviously not.

But to continue the story, we know that Jesus does not leave the child to “get it right” on his own.  Instead Jesus, who has baked this delicious cake before knows exactly how to make it—and not just how to make it but He makes it PERFECTLY delicious.  Then, what He does is He guides the child to learn how to grip the egg, how to measure and transfer the flour, and how to make this perfectly delicious cake for the child to enjoy with Jesus!  There are countless spills along the way, many bags of flour end up on the floor, and the batter is far from looking ready, BUT the child and Jesus are having a ball!  The child also notices little improvements here and there that bring him hope that he’s well on his way to being able to make his delicious cake!  So long as every slip up doesn’t bother him, but rather is used to show him where he could improve he is having a ball!  Because the child is making a delicious cake with Jesus who, every time the child’s cake fails, gives him a bite of His own.  So the child knows and realizes “Yes!  That is the kind of cake I want to be able to make too!”

However, it will take time because Jesus wants to teach the child to know how to make the cake not just make it for him.  So that, at some point the joy that Jesus has in being so familiar and confident with how to make the cake will also belong to the child.  The point of being perfect at it.  The child thought that the joy of being familiar with mud, sticks and pebbles was awesome...but Jesus knows it is limited—soooo limited!

Because the law shows us the way to a better life (it was written to make us perfect—like Jesus who fulfills it perfectly!). Jesus chose to live by the Law, the Psalmist David always saw the Law as so perfect and good, and if I can now have the Law (though it takes a process of living into it with the newfound help of God’s Spirit in me...then I choose the law!  Not because I can achieve it on my own, but because Jesus achieved it (ultimately) for me, and because it is good and His Spirit is helping me be like Jesus!  The law leads to our new life!  But we don’t get it by being good at it off the bat, we get it by following the leading of the Holy Spirit like the child having a ball baking the perfectly delicious cake!  The only rain on our parade is when our pride fails to recognize that our inability is part of the process.

“This means that, no matter how you feel, if you are a follower of Jesus you are never truly stuck. The Spirit is doing a million things in your heart and with your life, and while the theme song of your spiritual life may seem more like “Another One Bites the Dust” than “We Are the Champions,” you are indeed growing.

So we see that the Spirit is committed to making us more like Jesus. And in doing so, the Spirit is committed to making us more like the people we were designed to be.
The Holy Spirit is making us more like Jesus and at the same time more like our true selves.”
- Jared C. Wilson, the Imperfect Disciple

When we are our true selves, that is the full life, brimming over my loves!  We get there not by ourselves, but with Jesus, so have a ball with Him today!

Jmegrey