Defined by Christ
One thing that I have been learning in life the last few days and weeks… is that I am not defined by my past. Mistakes I have made, sins I have committed, people I have thought bad of… God has forgiven all of it! My past does not define who I am today. God does. One of my good friends shared a verse with me yesterday…
Romans 8:15 ~ “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
When I first read this verse, it just made me think how often I have felt enslaved to my past sins and mistakes. I have lived with a spirit of fear. But this promise of God to us says that we have received a new spirit! Because of what Christ did for us, we have received the spirit of sonship or daughtership…. we are HIS children! And we can call him, “Father.”
Another quote that she shared with me was this one by Brennan Manning.
“The only lasting freedom from self-consciousness comes from a profound awareness that God loves me as I am, not as I should be. He loves me beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity. He loves me in the morning sun and the evening rain without caution, regret, boundary, limit or breaking point; that no matter what I do, He can’t stop loving me. When I am really in conscious communion with the reality of the wild, passionate, relentless, stubborn, pursuing, tender love of God in Jesus Christ for me, then it’s not what I’ve got to or I must or I should or I ought; suddenly I want to change because I know how deeply I am loved.” -Brennan Manning
I am loved for who I am in Christ. I am defined by what Christ has done in my life… nothing else and no one else ultimately defines who I was yesterday, who I am today, or who I will be tomorrow.
Published on 11 Dec 2006 at 7:46 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under Thoughts.
amen, brother! don’t ever forget WHO you are first and formost…a child of God, and He’s CRAZY about you!
katie on 25 Dec 2006 at 2:43 am.
‘In christ alone my hope is found, he is my light my strength, my song; this cornerstone, this solid ground, firm through the fiercest drought and storm…’
stuart townend. what a legend.
Amy Mulholland on 26 Dec 2006 at 7:29 am.