Some view me as a nerd. Others as a Jesus freak. Others as a friend, a brother, or a son. Maybe a gamer, a music enthusiast, a Christmas junkie. All these define me, and yet they are all masquarades for what I truly am.
The deception has become so great even I can't see me as what I truly am. I believe the lies people throw at me. That I'm good enough. That I'm friendly enough. That I'm loving enough. But that just inflates my hubris and builds up walls. What am I? I am a broken child seeking out his Father. One not capable of perfection, but fully capable of ANY imperfect act; be it lying, lusting, murder. I am just one step away from any sin my flesh just happens to desire. We all live on this precipe, this cliff, and just one push can send us spiraling into disaster.
Thats why we need Jesus. He is our perfection. So that His Spirit can conquer and overpower our flesh. So that we can no longer live in fear; subconciously knowing we are ALL capable of the worst imaginable sins. Ones that sicken the soul. And if I have the potential to do so, I better have security to keep me from fulfilling that potential. And I find my security in Jesus. Some find theirs in fallible things, like optimism, love, or hope. The good things that keep our world going. But our world is fallible, and even though such good things are a metaphor for Jesus's nature, because they are human, they fail. Thats why laws are broken, lives smashed to pieces, and people dead. The finality of a spiritual death often shows itself in failure of good morales.
Jesus is the one true defense. An oasis of perfection - perfect optimism, perfect love, perfect hope - in the midst of our desert of imperfection. And although we may see mirages in our desperate dehydration, we won't find the actual security of Jesus unless He finds us. Our desert is unique: the oasis moves to find us when we are about to die.
These images people perceive me as have affected my perception of myself. I no longer see what I truly am: a desperate child in need of a defense against my own potential. I cannot succeed, truly succeed, without Jesus. Lifetime successes mean nothing once the lifetime ends. Eternal successes mean everything. Jesus provides us a way to overcome, to win, to succeed over our own potential. Our own death. We once were dead, but we have been raised to life through God's grace and faithfulness. For "...when we remain faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself," (2 Timothy 2:13). Jesus is the one defense, the one way out, the one oasis amidst the troubling uncertainty of what we MIGHT do, should we be pushed too far over the precipe.
No comments:
Post a Comment