Become? Or be?
You are loved.
God loves you.
For God is Love.
It is either true or false.
How could you be anything else but loved?
God's nature is not dependent on your or my acceptance or belief. Love is who God is.
Coming to this realization may be challenging, yet it is the most freeing reality we can experience. Think of the trails we travel seeking the Love that is already in us. Think of how we venture off the path in search of something that is already there. Addictions of all forms are often attempts to discover and find the love of God within.
It is an awakening to this love; the "Kingdom within" that Jesus devoted his life.
How much of our lives are spent attempting to "become" what the think we should be or attempting to be what we desire versus spending time "being" what we are?
What would our lives look like if we were focused on "being" who we are at our core instead of attempting to "become" something else?
Become: future
Be: present
Perhaps the more we allow oursleves to be, the more we will recognize the nature of God or Divine Love that is in our DNA. The more we are our true selves the more we recognize God's true self.
18 Comments:
Truer words have never been spoken!
Rick. You did it again. Thank you. "Coming to this realization may be challenging, yet it is the most freeing reality we can experience."
I wan to be free.
Rick--
I'm a firm believer than the most misunderstood concept as a believer is our identity in Christ. And I'm also a firm believer that if we understood who we were in Christ, we would live like it. Knowing that we are already fully accepted, fully loved, makes all the difference in the world. Expectation is gone. Shame is gone. We just get to live and love in return for the life and love we've received from the Father through the person of Jesus. Here is a paradox that I cling to: God cannot love me any less; God cannot love me anymore.
What freedom we find in His love and the new identity that we find in Him! Bless you!
I would have to say it's the other way 'round~ in finding/seeking God, we find ourselves.
Be is good for now. But since we are moving to the future, become is crucial too.
“Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” - Mk 1:17.
That's a good point, Bumble... but, I think it's important to remember who DOES the becoming. We are only recipients of the work He is doing in us, and all around us. When we take the reigns and force things to happen based on what we think should happen, we run the risk of getting in the way of what the Spirit is doing.
Just my opinion, but I know my life improved immensely as soon I started getting out of His way. His "rest" is a fine place to be. All kinds of wonderful possibilities exist when the Creator is allowed to create.
Thanks folks. I appreciate what each of you bring and add to the dicsussion.
Bruce, I am with you on this. You say it well. IMO. :)
Laaayla, thanks. Me too. Perhaps our freedom exists already?
Pastor Doug, thanks for being here. I am grateful for your comments.
Christine, I would agree and I would God we find ourselves. When we find ourselves, we find God... the source of our true nature and indentity.
BJ, thanks. Right on... God is love.
Bumble, Thanks! I understand where you are headed...those dudes were already fishermen. The words differ in the synoptics... perhaps the meaning is the same. I agree with Bruce.
Be what you are.
God's peace.
THe freedom.....to just remain BE in it.....
What an amazing God..thanks for the words this morning.
Another homer Rick. Thank you.
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Bumble, I love your comment, "Be is good for now. But since we are moving to the future, become is crucial too."
J.Jacob Jenkins, I will check out your book sometime soon and give you feedback, as you've requested.
In the meantime, Rick, I must comment that your blog entries are often timely and quite relevant to me -- possibly, of course, because so many of them address such universal human/spiritual themes. (Jesus was also quite good at that -- isn't it hard to not see oneself in nearly every single story he told?)
The muscle of the human heart and spirit that would simply allow ourselves to be who we are is so atrophied from disuse that most of us have no idea what kind of weight it might lift if we could/would only develop it further.
The muscle of the human heart and spirit that is so regrettably well-developed is the one that helps us try to recover -- again and again -- from being rejected in this way or that -- again and again -- by such a broad array of human others over a lifetime, that the part of ourselves theoretically capable of recognizing, receiving, and acting on God's unconditional love for us, is little more than a half-dead worm out on the asphalt on a desperately sunny day.
Dear J. Jacob's Jenkins
I would like to support those authors attempting to sell their books. I am unfamiliar with you and as far as I know you are not a frequent visitor here.
If you would like to contribute to the posts by commenting, you are welcomed but to show up and spam folks is a tad bit rude.
It would be like my coming home and discovering a poster in my front yard for some one in my neighborhood who is running for a political office.
Thanks.
Thaks Donna and Steve. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
DEar AA, good stuff. Thanks.
Right on Bruce, I am with you too. God "made" us becoming.
Like a therapist who "made" a lame patient become capable; Jesus initiates, and we respond...
Was it Karl Barth (if not another great theologian) who was asked "What is the greatest theological insight you have ever encountered?"?
He replied, "Jesus love me this I know, for the Bible tells me so."
Rick, I feel foolish.
I didn't recognize Jenkins' request as spam, although there did seem to be odd aspects to his/her request. I just chalked up the "odd aspects" to general humanity, and let it go at that. (The guile-detection device within my spirit is nano-metrically small-to-nondetectable, which of course means that I get beat up a lot.)
On a new topic, is this an appropriate forum to ask a question about yours and others' insights about masculinity/femininity as a reflection of the nature of God? I have no agenda, nothing to prove, and nothing to sell. I'm just really wondering, and I trust your judgment.
Wow, that's a lot to think about. I come from a background that the flesh is sinful so this is a new concept for me.I think of my true self as being wrong,marred.... Thanks for blogging:)
Rick:
I've been trying to put my question into words, but it just doesn't go into a sentence -- just a bunch of spidery, exponentially multiplying tentacles. And that might get pretty annoying on someone's blog!
I must excuse myself and be gone for a time. Thanks for what you write here; its stays with me for a long time, even when I'm not looking, and I'm sure many of your readers could say the same thing.
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