I am Who I am

Watching Judge Mathis just now, there was a mother and daughter in court.  The mother was suing the daughter or maybe it was the other way around.  The mother was in her 50's with a cougar tatooed on her leg.  I was really tripping out because her daughter called her out for dating these "younger men".  What really tripped me out is her response to the judge..."well judge, I am who I am.  I am not ashamed of it."

How many times have you heard someone say that?  Let's take it further, how many times have you heard someone say that that was not saved?  That is one of the most dangerous statements that anyone could make.  What this lady was saying is this...I'm not interested in changing.  I'm only interested in being "me".

Watching this and having previously watched the Sisterhood (actually being forced to watch by my wife) made me realize that there are many people that do not want to become the new creature (2 Cor 5:17) that God's grace so freely allows those that have accepted Christ to be.  It's different if we struggle with the flesh, but if there is no struggle, you might as well not even put your Converse on to get into the game.  Don't bother calling yourself a Christian if you are content to be the same person that you were when you first walked through the church doors.  That's a waste of time and unless there is some repentance, some fruit being bore and some spiritual growth, there is a cold end to that life style.  "I never knew you...depart from me, you workers of iniquity."

I am glad that Jesus met the old me, hung him on a cross and left him there to die while the new me, born in His image and being conformed to His likeness, walks in the newness of life.  We are so afraid that we are going to miss something or that we will be bored, but there is no better life than being a Christian and being free in Jesus.  When Jesus says that no man, after putting his hand to the plow share, and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God, that sounds pretty harsh at first.  But when we look at that scripture and the verb for "looking back", βλέπων (blepon) is in the present active tense.  What it literally means is that there is a constant looking back, even while the hands are affixed to the plow- that can't be.  We can't plow a straight line if we are not looking in front of us! 

Don't be who you are, be who God wants you to be.  That's the real issue.  Who you "are" outside of Christ should not control who you are in Christ.  As a matter of fact, it has zero bearing on who you are in Christ.  Because in Christ, the old things have passed away and all things have become new.  Whatever I was is washed away by the blood of Jesus.  Thank God that the new me and the old me are not one in the same.  I pray that the same is the case for you.  Hebrews 6 is chilling when you think about it.  Verse 7 and 8 reads: "For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.  But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned."  Don't be dry land that bears thorns and thistles, don't be the ground on which seed falls and is choked out by the worries and cares of this world!  Be who God called you to be, not who you "are".  Grace and peace.