Sunday, March 22, 2009

183. Focus on God's High View and Acceptance of You

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It's common for people to read the Bible and interpret what they read in a self-focused way, putting the responsibility on themselves to find God, to accept God, to come back to God, to perform for God, etc, when in reality God is the one who has reached out to us and performed all the work necessary for us to have a free, loving, intimate relationship with Him.

Kap and Joel talk about how we need to rid ourselves of an Old Covenant mentality and look at the Bible in light of God's high view of us as His treasured children, and His unconditional acceptance of us and love for us. He has placed us in Christ and He has made us alive together with Him. He has made peace with us. He has accepted us!

Despite the prodigal son's low view of himself, the father ran to him and accepted him with open arms, and paid no attention to what the son thought he might be able to do to gain a small measure of acceptance from his father. He threw a party for him!

We can forget any notion of "our part" in any of the salvation plan and in any part of the living out of this life in Christ. God has not left it up to us to make any of this happen! As if!!! He has simply asked us to believe. Through faith, we are branches on a vine, and we have no life in and of ourselves, but yet being connected to the vine we are privileged by God's grace to partake in the fullness of life in the Vine!

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