The Word This Week # 24

The Word This Week # 24
January 8, 2012
Sunday AM
Uncovering the Real You

      In the beginning we were made in the image and likeness of God. Our hearts were clean. (Gen. 1:27) Adam male and female were to eat of all the trees of the garden except the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. (Gen. 2:16-17) When they ate of the tree, it produced death. (Gen.3) The heart became darkened and clothed with sin.  Jesus came because our hearts are saturated with sin.
      Sin is not who we are, because we came from God (Is. 50:1), but sin is holding us captive. (Romans 7:14-24)  When we accept Jesus, he is ‘born’ in our hearts (1Peter 1:23); our “new man.”                  
     The Lord sees all the sin in our hearts and it is His desire that we see it, so that we can confess and repent of it. God sends us people and situations to expose our sin. The sin is already there, but God knows what it will take to expose it. Initially, the new man (Jesus Christ) came in when we confessed our sin.
     Every time we confess, we grow, and receive another portion of the stature of Christ. As we grow, the new man pushes back the sin covering, the ‘real’ us, and a new union is formed between Jesus Christ and the ‘real’ us. Seeing our sin is an invitation to run to Calvary and confess so our new heart can grow. The new man only grows as our sin gets exposed and taken to the cross.  
     Not everyone will take their sins to the cross. Some will blame others, or circumstances. Those who are forgiven more, love more and those who “press toward the mark” of a greater union with Jesus Christ are those who “die daily” and carry their exposed sins to the cross. When we run to Calvary it delights the Father, Who desires to reveal the Son and to bring us into a closer relationship with himself.