God Given Right

1John 4:17 - Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.

In God's Transformations on April 15 I showed how God uses the base and foolish to show His glory, to show how He can transform people's lives.

We are considered base and foolish before entering a relationship with God. Once we are in that relationship He no longer sees us that way. We have been given a new nature; we are being transformed into the likeness of Christ.

We now are able to "discover our rights and privileges of being sons and daughters of God" as the subtitle to a book (The Supernatural Ways of Royalty by Bill Johnson and Kris Vallotton) I'm reading states. This may sound like a whole new language to you but it's how our thinking can change and develop after God has gotten hold of us.

I've mentioned before that some Christians can appear to be arrogant in their thinking. Some might be. But there is a certain kind of pride we are allowed to have as children of God.

A relationship with Jesus does change us. We are dead to our past life and alive in our life in Christ. We are able to boast about our talents and gifts because we know now that it never was about me and what I did to achieve such things as I am good at. I now know that it is what God has created in me.

In the book I'm reading it mentions (as well as the Bible) in one chapter that "we were made in God's image and in His likeness. We didn't create ourselves. We are the work of His hands. When we tear ourselves down we aren't being humble, we are being stupid!" Genesis 1:27 confirms this: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

The book goes on to explain that if we don't recognize our goodness and strengths we aren't being humble at all. We are allowed to be proud of our strengths because of God and our relationship with Him. "When Jesus died on the cross, He didn't just die so He could forgive our sins. He died so we could be restored to our original purpose." I would say it this way--He died so His original purpose for each of us would be restored. We are nothing apart from Him. Remember, we are base and foolish until He gets His hands on us! Ephesians 1:4 shows us: ...He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

We should already know what we're good at. We know our strengths and weaknesses. God does too since He put them there and most likely we're all doing something we enjoy, something were good at. However, are we giving the glory to God? Or are we exalting ourselves?

Further in the chapter the writer says because we are made in His image we are made to glorify God. Do we glorify Him if we are weak and seemingly humble or do we glorify Him when we are confident of ourselves and take pride in the accomplishments He has given to us through His wisdom and knowledge? "...as long as we acknowledge where our greatness comes from, we're not in danger of pride...Unfortunately, confidence always looks like arrogance to the insecure." Our new lives in Christ may appear to be arrogance to some, but it is God working through us, changing us, giving us a different perspective on everything. He doesn't want wimpy followers. He wants to be proud of the changes He's made. Do we carry that in our lives or do we still hang on to the "I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not thin enough, I'm not rich enough" syndromes? I'm guilty sometimes! And that has got to change if I want God's approval.

First we have to understand that God does not want human pride to get in our way. We first need to humble ourselves before God--before He humbles us. Ouch. It's time for all Christians to stand up and be noticed for who God has created us to be. We are, after all, His children. Parents chasten their children that they might gain wisdom and become better...and proud...because of it. What parent doesn't want to be proud of his children?

Titus 2:14 - [Christ] who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.