the spirit of performance/religious spirit/orphan spirit is one that keeps on telling me that God isn't pleased with me, that i've missed the mark or that i'm doing something wrong, preventing me from boldly standing before Him. it is a place of insecurity, one that keeps telling me that i have to be doing more, strive harder, pray harder, to pursue holiness harder, to trust more, to grasp on to every spiritual truth on the knowledge of God (how it slips through my fingers!), and it leaves me in a place thinking i am just never good enough. and as i drown in my weakness i lose all sense of my self worth, and i feel like a failure. woe is me! =(
the concept of amazing grace is one that i've just scratched the surface of. the journey of understanding the free gift of grace is a long one because the grace of Jesus is another one of those upside down kingdom truths--one that clashes with how my human heart naturally understands love and acceptance. (really? i don't have to do anything to earn love?)
besides the forgiveness of my sins (mercy), amazing grace brings me into a position of confidence. it is a place where i am completely righteous not because of what i do but because what He did, in making a way for me to enter into the holy place. with this posture of confidence, i receive the spirit of adoption, and i enter into my identity as His son. as His son, i can run to Him amidst drowning my immature love, my inability to trust, the ease by which i forget His truths, and to know that Abba Father enjoys me just as i am.
in this place, there is no striving.
here, i can walk with my chin up because i know who i am and i know who i belong to.
the enemy loves to take away my confidence. confidence means that i am filled with desire. it means i can run boldly, freely to His throne and embrace Him, because i have faith. i'm realizing my confidence can't rely on how i'm feeling, or what comes to my mind at the moment, because the default will be the lies of the enemy, that i'm not loved, not worthy, nor do i deserve Him because i've fallen so short in my humanness.
the reality of amazing grace, just like any truth i learn or read, isn't a truth i can just blog about or highlight in my bible and store into the deep abyss of my mind. rather, truth becomes alive only when i can use it in my dialogue with Him and it when it becomes something so engrained in my thoughts that my heart beats to it. such transformation, or the renewing of the mind (romans 12:2) is possible only as i fill my mind with truth and i thank Him and talk to Him about it. here, a paradigm shift brings about a revelation of the beautiful inheritance i always had, yet had failed to realize: the free gift of righteousness. it's a remarkable thing, to realize that freedom comes with the small (yet extremely difficult) way my mind thinks. such is the beauty of the spirit of revelation. thank You Holy Spirit!
oh the riches of a confident spirit i have yet to discover.
