Weather Report From Heaven: Sunny and bright, with an abundance of light and lots of singing and rejoicing.
Scripture- “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”- 2 Corinthians 5:17
Insight: The first thing that I learned from Jesus when I gave my life to Him was that I had to be real with myself in order for Him to do the work in me that He desired and that frankly needed to be done. In order to be made new, we must be willing to be vulnerable and remove our masks. This meant I had to let Jesus into the deepest parts of my soul, so he could begin the healing and restoration process. This was very difficult at first, because I had years of scar tissue built up around those areas of my life where the deepest wounds had been. We learn to compensate for those wounds in order to simply survive. However, when you encounter the risen Lord and say “yes” to His invitation to follow Him, you realize that the old ways of doing things are gone. He makes everything new, and that means old things need to be tossed out. I quickly learned that I had been wearing some “masks” that needed to be removed in order for this process to begin.
So what were some of the masks I was hiding behind in my attempt to present myself as “acceptable” to a watching world? I was hiding my deep emotional pain by wearing a mask of “happiness.” Deep down I wasn’t happy but I wanted the world to see me as such. I did this through being the “funny” guy, the big “partying guy” that could out drink or out last anyone in a night of revelry. I was also wearing a mask of “success” but deep inside I was empty. I was tying my self-worth to my net worth, and that just made me feel emptier. When Christ came into my life, He asked me to remove those masks, and to allow Him to use His scalpel of love and grace to remove my deepest pain and thus the need for me to wallow through life wearing deceptive masks. He led me into being a whole “new creation” that was honest with my shortcomings and willing to be vulnerable in asking for His healing. For Him to work in my life, my prideful defenses had to go and I had to be raw with my emotions. While painful at first, it soon proved to be the cathartic healing that I had been searching for my whole life.
While I am still very much a work in progress, and still try to foolishly pull back control of my life from His way more capable hands, I can now see real growth, contentment and wisdom that was lacking when I was wearing the masks that this world requires. Everything in Christ is better. I see beauty all around where I once saw only pain, and a need for masks has been replaced by the truth that my life has infinite value and purpose. So does yours. But you can never find it trying to live up to the world’s definition of what “success” looks like. Only when you are “made new” and filled with the Holy Spirit, can you rightly see that your big life purpose that sets you free, lies in the teachings of Jesus when He was asked what the greatest commandment was in Matthew 22:36 and He replied “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ It is not about serving yourself but serving Him. That is the big mystery of life that leads to a deep peace and contentment that “surpasses understanding”, as Philippians 4:6-7 says. It is not easy, and it can take a lifetime of mistakes and high and lows, of doubts and fears, to finally get there and surrender it all to Jesus. But I can at least now go through life knowing who I truly am in Christ: A whole new creation, made new in Him, which allows me to see things more clearly than ever before, filled with His grace and peace in the deepest parts of my soul.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank You that You died and were resurrected for us to set us free and make all who call on Your Holy Name a child of God, a new creation in You. The relief we feel when we no longer have to run a race we can never win is the greatest feeling in the world. Thank You for setting us free. Amen!
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