|
Change
by Ron
Marquardt
All in all, we want our
lives to change, even though most of us fear change. We are all
doing what we want to do-attracting what we want out of life-good or
bad. This all occurs just from the way we see ourselves. Now before
you start screaming “new age mumbo jumbo”, every concept I just
mentioned has been in the scriptures from the beginning. Prov 23:7
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he… Gal 6:7 Be not deceived;
God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap. KJV
We all deal with identity
crisis, which was created in the Garden of Eden when we questioned
we were not like God and ate of the tree of evaluation. It was God
who said “let us make man after our own image and our own likeness
and put him in charge of this whole planet”. You can’t be any more
like Him than created in His likeness. Adam and Eve questioned
themselves and believed God was holding something back. Their eyes
were opened, not that they were blind, they just saw things from a
different perspective. At that moment, they began to make wrong
judgments about themselves and God. Things had to change.
From that day forward,
all of us were doomed to evaluate whether we were good our bad based
on our own judgments, not to mention our judgments about God. The
temptation is always the same-whether it’s Adam or Eve or Jesus.
Jesus was tempted to question His identity right after God said
“this is my beloved son in whom I’m well pleased”. There is nothing
wrong with turning stones into bread, unless it’s in rebuttal to “if
you be the son of God”.
Paul said in Rom. 1:16 I
am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God
unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and
also to the Greek. KJV Let’s examine this scripture. If the real
Gospel of the bible is preached, it is the power of God for every
part of salvation or sozo in the Greek. Sozo means saved, healed,
delivered, prospered, protected, a whole state of being. Change,
real change, comes effortlessly, as a by-product from God’s power in
us, by hearing and believing the gospel.
It is the next verse that
explains this very well. 17 For therein is the righteousness of God
revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live
by faith. The real gospel (for therein) is revealed as the
righteousness of God from faith to faith. If you’re hearing a gospel
that is not revealing to you that you have His “rightness” as a part
of the finished work of God, you have no power to change. Any change
you may be experiencing is just behavior modification, which doesn’t
last. We have all tried to change by doing the best we could but
that is not the power of God that brings the good stuff of
life.
The point is simple, real
faith must be revealing to your own self image that you are right
with God because of Jesus. When you see yourself in His unchanging
love from each step of your faith (faith to faith), everything
changes. Your relationships will change, your health will change,
your finances will change, and it will be without effort.
I pray that you use your
faith to believe you really are who God says and sees you to be and
not what your pain, your past, or your shame says you
are.
Grace &
Peace
Ron
|
