the real me

I absolutely love this beautiful Natalie Grant-song, The Real Me. I encourage you to take some time to listen to it, dwell on the lyrics, and invite the One, Jesus, who sees the real you deeper into you. It’s a journey with him that the song is inviting you to. A journey where you decide to stop living from lies, pretenses or behind a mask. A life where you get to experience the freedom, joy, peace, and realness that comes from living life with God, with yourself and with other people without excuses or promises. A life where you encounter everybody around you just the way you are.

I have been on a journey the last few years of discovering who I really am. I thought I knew who I was, and God showed me that a lot of that was just my flesh, just the masks I was wearing trying to hide my faults and weaknesses while trying to impress other people with my strengths and accomplishments. He has been stripping me of those masks that I was hiding behind, and he is in the process of revealing more and more of who I really am. It’s exciting, life-giving, and beautiful when he does that. The process of being stripped of old flesh patterns is necessarily painful, but there is great joy in discovering and starting to rest in who you really are in Christ.

This song speaks about who you are, and I pray for myself, and anybody else who reads this that God will show you who you really are in him – if you know him! And that God will call you to him for the first time, if you don’t know him at this point. He is your Creator, he is the one who has placed tremendous value and his eternal stamp of approval on who we are in him, and he longs to reveal that to you and me.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2. Corinthians 5:17)

Blessings, Torben

Jesus doesn’t give up on me

The title on this blog entry points to a great wonder and miracle. It’s easy for me to give up on other people. I see friends, family members, acquaintances, celebrities and my next door neighbor repeat negative life patterns, and I judge them, and I’m tempted to give up on them. They’ll never change anyway, I think to myself…It’s also very easy for me to give up on myself. I have done that many times. And today I feel like giving up on myself again. I don’t get all this identity in Christ stuff that I talk about, write about and dream about really getting. I just don’t at this point. I have scratched the surface of some amazing truths, but I have not allowed it to take as much root in my life, as I had hoped for. Today I heard some other people talk about having Christ live his life through them, and they spoke with a confidence and a sense of security and understanding, that I simply cannot muster up this Wednesday in the beginning of September 2008. So I’m tempted to give up on myself. I’ll never get it. I’ll never truly learn to allow Christ to live his life through me. I’ll never truly learn to be satisfied no matter what the circumstances may be. I’ll never find the perfect fit for me ministry vice. Other people do and that’s great for them, but I won’t. I’ll never be able to stop worrying a lot.

And so the thoughts go…and I’m tempted to give up on myself. I picked up Brennan Manning’s book “The Signature of Jesus” that I secretly borrowed from my parents-in-law’s bookshelf (don’t worry, I’ll give it back!). I didn’t feel like reading it, but I had to do something pro-active to stop the downward spiral of giving up on myself and feeling sorry for myself. Unfortunately those two feelings live in the same neighborhood and like to hang out together.

I read this simple quote which brought a smile to my face, and reminded me that no matter where I’m at, what I feel, what I do or don’t do or what ever my circumstances may be or feel like, one thing is for sure: Jesus does not give up on me! His patience with me never stops. Hallelujah that my relationship with him is not dependent on my stability, but on who he is.

“Personally, I take great comfort in the life stories of the first disciples. Their response was flawed by fear and hesitation. What they shared in common was dullness, an embarrassing inability to understand what Jesus was all about. Their track record was not good: They complained, they misunderstood, they quarreled, they wavered, they deserted, they denied. Christ’s reaction to their broken, inconsistent discipleship was one of unending love. The good news is that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” 

Blessings, Torben – who thanks God that he has taught him much about patience, but realizes that there still are many, many lessons to be learned in that area….