Live Like It! (5 seconds)

"You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity."

Matthew 5:48 The Message

John 14:21 - prescription or description? (55 seconds)

"Whoever has my commandments and obeys them, he is the one who love me..." - John 14:21

For years I read this verse wrong. And when we read it wrong it becomes a heavy load. It was for me.

I think most of us learned to read it first as a prescription on how to become one who loves God... "if I obey his commands I will become one who loves God." In other words, my obedience transforms me. I also learned to read it as the prescription of how to show God I love him. I will prove to Him that I really do love Him by working hard at keeping His commands...and the harder I work at keeping His commands, the more He will see that I love Him and the more pleased He will be with me.

But what if this is not a prescriptive statement but an identity statement? What if because I am one who loves God (my identity), the result is I now have an ability to obey, and I do obey.

If we learn to read John 14:21 this way, it becomes an affirmation of the truth that our obedience is the evidence of what God has already done in us...rather than it being what we do so that He will do something in us.

My Identity is the Source of my Behavior...and my Effort!

Ephesians 5:8 "...at one time you were darkness, but now you are light...walk as children of light..."

"At one time you were...now you are..." We are not who we used to be! In Christ we actually are someone different. Paul in this passage doesn't just say we are now living in the light, but we are light. He then says that this light has a DNA of goodness, of rightness, and of truth ("for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true"). Because we are a new creation in Christ, we now have this new DNA implanted in us. Then Paul says we are to "walk" or to live consistantly with who we are. We do not behave so that we can become someone with the DNA of light, but because we have the DNA of light, we are to live that way..."walk as children of light." Live like who you are.

Note again that our behavior is not the cause of our identity...rather our identity is the source of our behavior.

The other day we talked about how grace is never opposed to effort...and here it is again. To "walk as children of light" takes effort. A three mile walk takes more effort than a three hour nap. And so we do exert effort...lots of effort...but it is effort focused on living out of our new identity, not effort focused on trying to eventually become someone different from the scum we currently are. Could it be that my obedience is the evidence of what God has already done in me?