I am not a follower of Christ

So many of us these days are defined by something. We find that defining line in our lives peaceful and encouraging. We like to feel that we are a part of something. Held in a special category safe and sound surrounded by theologies, ideologies, principles and for a lack of better words a moral code that was orchestrated and created by the creator of the heavens and the earth. I found myself in that very position of thinking for the majority of 25 years. It was a jail cell for me. A place of captivity that confined me to a very strict set of rules. Within those rules I governed everything I did and thought accordingly. I tried to say the right things, applied the armor of God daily, prayed for wisdom and strength to live a holy life and always wrestled with my flesh DAILY that I might somehow be closer to my God. But was that the exact intention God had for us when he designed the blueprints of relationship at the cross? Maybe it’s your version and it works, if so congratulations I’m truly happy for you but it doesn't work for me. I think the key focal point that I now look at is that “Jesus designed relationship with us at the cross”. The cross is where all the trying & crying died a sinner’s death. The cross is where our straining and obtaining ceased to exist. It’s at the cross where I have the mind melting revelation that it is truly “not I that lives, but Christ that lives within me”. Jesus wasn't being literal when he said “pick up your cross and follow me.” The whole point of that statement was said to confuse you. Well confuse those who he said it to at the time. So many people think that command was made so that we would understand “death to self” When in reality it was said in order to frustrate you to a place of surrender. Surrender to what? The truth that His death to self on the cross was mankind’s death to self for eternity. The only 2 things that we are tasked with doing when it comes to our relationship with Christ is believing in the full finished work of what he has done and simply enjoying the life we have in him. Everything else like “praying for breakthrough” and “entering his presence” and all that stuff I grew up with. In my mind belittles the enormity of what he actually did at the cross. You think he would disrobe his cosmic unfathomable divinity to only do half the job? No. The salvation he dished out for all humanity at the crooked cross of his execution was salvation to man from himself. The sin nature that we are confronted by at the pulpit of the American church has been eradicated. “The life I now live in this body I live by faith, through complete reliance of the son of God that died for me.”

People think it’s heresy to claim that the sin nature is no longer present in us. I say why? Are you afraid to admit that if you don’t have a sin nature you then can’t explain why you have sinful thoughts and actions? 1+1=2 right? Sin nature + pathetic unlucky human = sinful life. If that’s the case what the hell has changed since the claimed dismal of “law” that Jesus came to dismiss? Understanding the simple idea that “it is finished” truly changes the dynamic of any Jesus believing person. It changes how you think about EVERYTHING especially if you were raised in the church hearing the “good news” of the halfway saved gospel. By no means am I advocating that we should just go and act like heathens and sin all we want. No not at all. It’s like drug addiction; if you use once, you’re not addicted. But if you use twice and three, four and then five times, the addiction sets in and you’re now dependent upon it and it rules your life. But by no means do we call that person stuck forever in a “drug nature” infested life that he must now work on for the rest of his life. No he needs to simply come to a place where he remembers who he is and finally get the help that can save him. Once he overcomes that drug addiction in a real and sobering way, he is back to the original perfect design of his best self. We simply need to remember who we are and what’s been accomplished for us. Wallowing in fear that we may stumble and praying for strength in the battle against sin looks a lot like the process the Jews encountered post salvation. It was a song and dance to acquire righteousness which was never acquirable. Our lives should revolve around the constant humbling revelation of our perfect holiness acquired at the cross. But what did exactly happen at the cross? What exactly transpired in our broken hearts that created an atmosphere so different moments before he took his last breath? The answer? A heart blocked by the “curtain of sin” in the temple torn in half to reveal on the other side Jesus standing with nothing in the way, asking you one question; “are you ready for me to possess your heart?” Understanding that statement brings light to the fact that it’s not YOU who are holy and righteous but him who consumes you and possesses you.

For the sake of conclusion I’ll say part of the reason I even decided to touch on this subject is because of the state of our country's health. We were founded on traditional Christian morals July 4^th 1776 by men who believed that freedom was an important ingredient to what could be the greatest country in the world. So far in many ways they were and have been successful in that thinking. But over time man’s thinking has grown old. Logical thinking and Godly principles this country was founded on has slowly fallen to the wayside and progressive thinking, greed, hate and old ways are birthing themselves back into man’s minds in ways that will make it hard to ever turn back. But like so many times before us, Christian men and woman rose up in the name of unpopular change within the religious system. To see forth what could be a better time and era for the future of man. For example Abraham Lincoln rose up to see the destruction of slavery. America answered the shout of evil in World War 2 with courage and a stance for what’s right in the face of blatant evil. Martin Luther King Jr. rose up for equal civil rights for all men and woman.

So what does this have to do with my subject line to this post? The revelation of the finished work of the cross reverberates that in this dark time in the world we can see a reformation in our thinking and hearts when it comes to Jesus Christ and his salvation brought to us. That in this dark time we see that we cannot simply pick up our cross and follow him into the next chapter of what is going to happen. But that we must fully let go of our religion, let go of our need to see his kingdom come, and let go of that old idea to “usher him in.” Instead simply remember who you are in his death and rely upon his true good news that no matter what storm he walks in to calm, you are simply safe and caught within his love.

I am not a follower of Christ. I am resting in Christ.

“For in him we live and move and have our being”