Aweikinin 3/02/2015

From Galatians 1:1-24

“Freedom!”

H,

Well, it is a human distinction that sets the past as something either to be forgotten or something to be hid at all cost, if it is negative. We have the inverse problem here: it is to be celebrated. Or in more popular terms, it all adds up to glory. This is the most transparent of all things. It has no need to hide anyone’s past or flawed present. It was the same one who denied Jesus who boldly declared the faith at Pentecost and that speech spurred on the march of the church through time.

We are free to be flawed and to admit it. We have no reason to hide. All this nonsense I hear about being a “witness” or not spoiling a “testimony” does not recognize the fact that our testimony is Christ and our witness is of His power to save from the power of sin. We cannot be like the Pharisees who approach the idea of salvation based on their own personal “righteous” armor. What a powerful thing it is when we are vulnerable enough to say that we are “in repair” and that we fall down and this daily. We might also add that this repair is real and that arms lift us up every time we fall.

This is not a faith for those who think it is what they do that matters but for those who realize the reason and power behind what they do. It is not a celebrity hub or a popularity contest. It states “the first shall be the last” and “the parts that do the most hidden bits are the ones with the greater glory”. There is no time for ego here. The point of testimony is to refer to our walk with God and where that has brought us so anyone walking in the trailing dark can realize that this power of light works best in the darkest dark. We are translucent and, even better, transparent so this light and glory might pass through us and land on hearts looking for the freedom we have received to live out to the fullest extent of their being that life less ordinary day by day.

We lose a lot of the immediacy of the gospel when we try to prove points and do PR for God. In real terms, we are not qualified for this. In terms of grace, it is unnecessary. In some strange way, strange to us that is, this whole transformation works best the less we hide. It works best in weakness and better that in weakness revealed. Our whole lives are an open book to God. It may be useful if we let Him continue to do the great work that is writing out true story in it so we may discover the superior tale to our inferior fictions.