A Life In The Mirror

So from now on, we do not look at anyone from a worldly viewpoint. Even if we once regarded the Messiah from a worldly viewpoint, we do so no longer.

2 Corinthians 5: 16 ~ Complete Jewish Bible~

I know a man who for years has struggled to gain the respect of his own son.  Despite his efforts, his son hangs onto that image of his father from years ago.  From what I've been told, that image is not a possitive one at all.  For in his younger days, this man lived in the moment as he dabbled in alchohol, drugs and women.  Granted, not too many people would see him as a possitive role model to his children.  Then again, more than a few men have behaved in such ways for years.  I watched as my own father walked his own path of self destruction for some time.  So, what's the big difference between this man I know and myself?  Am I really that unique and special?  Why is it that I never followed in my own fathers footsteps?  Well, for a time I did.  My friend told me some time ago after a contentious argument with his son that "that man he's looking for is gone!"  Yet, like that prisoner chained to a steel ball, his former life and habits continue to hold him captive.  I get it.  There are times when many of us feel like that prisoner chained to our former life.  No matter what we do, the image of that former person we once were continues to dominate our thoughts and the opinions of those who know us.  is it no wonder that the apostle Paul claimed in Romans 6 that we, through Christ Jesus, should "no longer be slaves to sin."  For it is indeed sin that enslaves us.  Ask anyone who may be in the midst of  their own addiction to alchohol, pornography or drugs and you might just feel as if you are talking to a prisoner condemned to a life incarcerated.  I've been there myself.  To this day there are those who continue to see me as that guy they knew years ago.  I have no remedy for that.  I do, however, have a remedy for how I see myself in that mirror each morning.  I can choose to accept who it is that I once was, or I can trust in Christ and the man He claims I am.  

We know that our old self was put to death on the execution-stake with him, so that the entire body of our sinful propensities might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For someone who has died has been cleared from sin. 8Now since we died with the Messiah, we trust that we will also live with him. 9 We know that the Messiah has been raised from the dead, never to die again; death has no authority over him. 10 For his death was a unique event that need not be repeated; but his life, he keeps on living for God. 11 In the same way, consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive for God, by your union with the Messiah Yeshua.

Romans 6: 6 - 11 ~ The Complete Jewish Bible~

I go back to what my friend has told me on more than one occassion in regards to his son, "That man he's looking for is gone."  Indeed, we're told that our former life which we once lived has been put to death...that we may no longer be enslaved to sin.  That man I once was no longer exists.  Not only that, that man that others remember is gone as well.  I have a few christian friends who take this a step further and no longer see me as that man born into sin.  That man is gone, never to return.  If I were to talk to my friends son I would ask him one simple question, "Why are you still chasing a dead man?"  Of course, not being a believer he might just brush it off.  Then again, a seed might just be planted in him where he may one day see the truth of who he, and his father, truly are in Christ.  Do we see Jesus as He once was?  A man of flesh and blood?  No, as Paul claims, we see Christ in this way no longer {2 Corinthians 5:16}.  Likewise, Christ no longer views those who follow Him by their former behaviors.  In the eyes of Jesus, we are created in the perfect image of the Father.  In the eyes of Jesus we are Gods children {1 John 3:1}.  I have not found one scripture where Jesus sees me as that former man I once was.  This is no longer what defines us.  Likewise, we are no longer to see others in regards to the flesh {2 Corinthians 5:16}.  I might be all too aware of that man which my friend once was, yet I no longer see him in that way.  I see him as Christ Jesus sees me.

3 1 See what love the Father has lavished on us in letting us be called God’s children! For that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it has not known him. 2 Dear friends, we are God’s children now; and it has not yet been made clear what we will become. We do know that when he appears, we will be like him; because we will see him as he really is.

1 John 3: 1 - 2 ~The Complete Jewish Bible~ 

~Scott~ 

Keeping It Real

17But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
1 Corinthians 6: 17 NKJV

It's hard to look at the world today and see a whole lot of posers out there.  That is, people pretending to be something they're not.  I should know, I've worked with a poser for the past few years.  Even I was a poser for some time.  Sure, I read the word and joined the loyal christian rank and file each sunday in Gods house.  I was pretending.  Pretending that everything was all good.  Pretending that my life was going just the way God wanted it to be.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.  For behind that mask of the loyal christian was a man who had lost his own identity.  Either that, or I was unsure of my identity in the first place.  I wasn't keeping it real.  I wasn't being true to who I really was.  To me, and many christian posers like me, Jesus was someone who was far off.  He was that reward I would receive if I lived a life pleasing to God.  The trouble with this line of thinking is...we can never live up to Gods standards.  I think of Jesus, perect in each and every way and I would realize that a life lived like Jesus was unatainable.  So, each week I would return to church to seek forgiveness for once again failing to attain the Jesus standard.  At least I wasn't alone.  Like clockwork, each week the pastor would once again lay it all out of just how I could "be more like Jesus."  I kid you not, there were many times where I felt like a hamster on a wheel constantly chasing something I could never achieve. 

19Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body gand in your spirit, which are God’s.
1 Corinthians 6: 19 - 20 NKJV

I still recall the moment I decided that the institutional church life wasn't for me.  Listening to a sermon one sunday I was confused by the pastors claim that Jesus had provided for the forgiveness of our sins, but that now it was up to us to live up to His standard.  What?  So, Jesus loves me enough to erase all of my sins, but now this pulpit pounder was telling me that I still needed forgiveness?  I was done with the dog and pony show.  Don't get me wrong, I wasn't done with my christian friendships, just the message and teaching of the church.  I couldn't see myself ever attaining that Jesus standard the pastor talked about.  Imagine my surprise, however, when I learned that I was never meant to bear the standard of Christ.  Jesus, being perfect, became sin on my behalf so that I would never need to {2 Corinthians 5:21}.  Not only that, the reason that I was a poser was that I was failing to realize who I really was.  My identity had never been centered on my physical body, but by He who had been in me all along.  There was no need for me to be more like Jesus.  How could I be more like someone I already was?  Now, don't bust my chops because I claim that I am Christ.  I'm not a heretic, just keeping it real.  I've often wondered why more institutional pastors fail to embrace the truth of Christ in us.  Perhaps they fear that if they did then all those posers out there wouldn't need them anymore.  My advice to those pulpit pounders?  Keep it real!

~Scott~

How I Screwed Up Gender Identity

If you can keep your head when all about you
 Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
 But make allowance for their doubting too.
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
 Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
 And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
 If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster,
 And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
 Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
 And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make a heap of all your winnings
 And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
 And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
 To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
 Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
 Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
 If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
 With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
 And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!
~Rudyard Kipling~

I saw a interesting story on the evening news the other night about how traditional male masculinity is now becoming a thing of the past in our modern politically correct culture.  If that's true then I shoulder some of the blame for it's demise.  See, I was brought up to believe that a man did man things.  Men worked, earned their living, provided for their families and, when needed, fought and died for what they believed in.  This was the essence of being a man.  Every now and then I will still go back and read once again the book Wild At Heart by John Eldgredge.  I read about how a christian man yearns to be.  Wild, unafraid and prone to adventure.  I guess the folks at Fox news didn't seek out his opinion before running their recent story on the decline of the masculine male.  Seriously, I really think that there is a segment of our society that truly resents who I am and what I stand for.  I get it.  Don't get me wrong, I didn't do this on purpose just to tick someone in some liberal think tank off.  I didn't choose who I was going to turn out to be.  That, folks, is definately above my pay grade.  No, I simply played the cards I was dealt.  I'm sure that my mom, being a christian lady, prayed that her unborn son would be healthy.  Hey, her prayers were answered!  Yes, I am healthy and yet not normal so it would seem.   So, how is it that we got here?  How did we get from a place where guys like John Wayne were idolized as ideal men to where we are now?  If I'm to be a man, I need to know this.  Am I responsible for screwing up the entire gender indentity of our culture?  Well, it depends on who it is you listen to.  Like I said, I came up in an era where men did as I do.  Back in the 70's you rarely heard a man lamenting the fact that he seldom showed his emotions.  Hell, my own father was as stoic as can be most of the time.  Dad was always building something out of wood be it furniture or cabinets.  He seldom spent his time worrying if he was compassionate or understanding.  That wasn't who he was.  He was rough and tumble, quiet and at times too ornery for his own good.  He drank his beer and hung out with his friends.  That was my dad.  Through it all we never had any doubt that my dad was a man.  So it was that his youngest son followed in his footsteps, for the most part. 


11When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
1 Corinthians 13: 11 NKJV

A friend of mine recently wrote of a shirt someone had gifted him which, in our current society, could cause him some trouble.  The inscription on the shirt stated simply "MAN UP."  Now, I get the reference of the shirt, but most well meaning christians most likely wouldn't.  What does it mean to man up?  Well, most people might consider this a put down.  However, in our group of friends it might just be seen as a challange.  See, we've spent quite a bit of time searching and talking about the kind of man that Jesus was.  I have to admit that the man Jesus is pretty good role model for any man or someone who is a man and yet thinks he might not be.  Who was the man Jesus?  Jesus was a man who worked with his hands, learned his trade  at his fathers side and hung out with his friends.  Above all, Jesus was a man who put others before Himself.  I believe that Jesus did plenty of guy stuff, but He also had a definate compassionate side as well.  Despite this, not too many people look upon Jesus as being weak in any way.  On the contrary, Jesus is constantly seen as one of the most admired men in history.  This same man who took pity on the poor, mercy on the sick and wept for a dead friend (relax, he was just sleeping) is often held up as a sparkling example of how a man should be.  Yes, Jesus was all of that and more.  However, if you were to ask the Pharisees of His day you might get a different picture of who Jesus was.  To these Jewish authorities, Jesus was a rebel, a threat and a blasphemer.  Like the news story I saw, our own view of Christ may very well depend on who it is we're listening to.  I know Jesus as a loving and merciful Lord who loved me before anyone else would.  I know Jesus as a selfless man who gave Himself for my sins.  I also know Jesus as one who took a tough stand against those who threw aside the name of the Father or mistreated others.  The man Jesus was both masculine and meek, the perfect combination.  Do I need to model myself after Jesus?  Not really, because He's already provided for that as well.  Whether Jesus ever thought about what it took to be a man or not is irrelevant.  What I am sure of is that He lives through me today {Galations 2:20}.  That's right, the man Jesus lives on in the very one who has seemingly upended our cultural gender indentity.  Well, if you really buy into that I have some advice for you...MAN UP!

20“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
Galations 2:20 NKJV

~The Man Scott~

Waiting On A Friend

6For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5: 6 - 8 NKJV

I know a man who, whenever we are to meet, will count the minutes that pass if I happen to be running late.  There have been plenty of times where I have walked in just as he was about to leave.  Now, he never does this out of spite, he simply has things to do I'm thinking.  I thought about my friend the other day as I was contemplating my own relationship with Jesus.  That is, how many times in my christian life have I left Jesus there beside me...waiting on a friend?  Even though I am well aware that Christ now lives through me, I am equally aware that this wasn't always the case at all.  What was He doing in those times where I had yet to realize His truth in me?  It seems like a good question for someone who might not know the truth of Jesus, but I'm guessing that I should already know this...right?  Jesus...where were you when the world around me held more pull over my life than you did?  If I am to trust in His word, then I know in my heart that He has never left me {Deuteronomy 31:6}.  So, the entire time that I reveled in the behaviors of this world, Jesus has been in the same place He's always been...just waiting on His friend.  One of the key points of our own knowledge of Christ in us is that He is always be there with us, but that we simply don't realize that He is.  All too often we fall for that  institutional church hogwash that we are somehow seperated from the very one who has proclaimed that He would never leave us.  Tell me again how that works.  There have been many sermons I have sat through where the central message was that I needed to be more like Jesus.  Folks, I ALREADY was like him!  I just did not realize at the time my true identity in Him at that time. 

1 13“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14“You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15“No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you."
John 15: 13 - 15 NKJV

I have told a friend of mine on more than one occassion that it would have been much easier for me if I had known the truth of Christ in me from a earlier age.  Maybe, but then perhaps I wouldn't be the seasoned christian which I am today.  See, there's a reason for which we go through the trials that we do in life.  The apostle Paul speaks to the believers in Corinth that when he was a child he spoke, thought and reasoned as a child.  However, when he became a man, he gave up such childish things.  Sound advice indeed.  Paul must have known, as most mature christians today do, that we often graduate from a childs understanding of God to a more mature understanding in our own walk.  Some come to this realization sooner or later than others.  From my time working with sunday school age kids I can understand the view which they often had of God.  They sing songs and read stories of a God who they see as somehow seperate from them.  Be good, we tell them, and God will look upon them with favor.  Can you imagine a sunday school class where kids are taught that they live as Jesus?  The pastor might just see a group of unruly heretics running around hell bent on destroying his message.  We couldn't have that could we?  Then agian, how many sunday school age children possess the maturity to realize such a thing as living as Christ?  Don't worry, in time they will give up childish things.  If I were to go back as a sunday school teacher the message I would like to instill is that Jesus is closer to us than we will ever know.  I think even the youngest child could undertand that Jesus is near to them waiting on His friend.

11When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
1 Corinthians 13:11 NKJV

~Scott~

Walking With THe Man

20“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
Galations 2: 20 NKJV

I overheard a radio pastor recently long for that day when he and his fellow believers would walk each day side by side with Jesus.  His statement really did not make me stop and consider the alternatives of a life without Christ.  See, I already know the advantages of living a life in Christ.  I thought, as I listened to this pulpit pounder, that I would have loved to have a discussion with him about the  Jesus that I now know.  I assume that it would be a similar discussion to the ones I've had with a friend of mine as I came to see that truth of Christ in me.  I mean, who wouldn't desire to walk side by side with the one who gave His very life for them?  The one who loved them first?  However, when I hear a fellow christian make the statement that "I wish that I could walk with Jesus," I already know that they have yet to realize the truth of Christ Jesus.  That was my life before I came to know Jesus on a more personal level.  I would take in sermon after sermon on how, if I lived my life in a righteous way, that I would someday walk side by side with Jesus.  To most christians, being with Jesus is the end goal of a life well lived.  If we carry that weight, tote that cross and deny ourselves, then eventually we will somehow "earn" that right to walk with Christ.  That's exactly the road I was on as a young believer.  To me, I was to toil my life away on earth while Jesus, sitting at the Fathers side, awaited the day when I would finally earn the privilege to be with Him.  I made the comment more than once in the presence of a christian friend that this path, this walk towards righteousness that I was on seemed to be a never ending road.  It seemed that I could walk the road of life forever without ever knowing Jesus on a personal level.  For each few strides I would make in His direction, I would lose ground as I fell into my own bad behaviors.  It was in these times when I would hear most pastors explain to me that I needed to "be more like Jesus."  So, in order to live a life with the end goal of being with Him I needed to be like Him?  There were plenty of times when I felt as if I would never come to know Jesus.  Yet, I found out that it wasn't the journey I was on that was the issue, but that I had been given the wrong map in the first place. 

6knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
7For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6: 6 - 11 NKJV

I believe that the most crucial mistake that christians make in their desire to know Jesus is how they see Him.  As I said, in my early christian life the institutional church doctrine of the day has taught me that there is a seperation between myself and God.  We are to trust that God in in heaven with His Son by His side looking down upon His children here on earth.  To me it seemed believable.  I mean, we're taught that God cannot be in the presence of sin {Isaiah 59:2}.  It is our own sins that has driven a wedge between ourselves and our Lord.  How is it that I, being a sinner, could ever be good enough to walk with Jesus?  Well, it is BECAUSE of Christ that we are able to walk with Him.  It is because Christ became sin on our behalf that we no longer carry the sin burden which we for so long have dragged behind us {2 Corinthians 5:21}.  Yes, in our original condition we would have no chance of attaining the righteousness of God that we would walk with Jesus.  However, God already knew this, and He has provided that escape for His children from the chains and slavery of our sin {Romans 6:6}.  With our sins (and our old sin nature) nailed to that cross with Jesus there is now nothing standing in our way of walking with the man Jesus.  Well, I will correct myself, there is but one thing stopping each and every christian from knowing Jesus on a more personal level as I have.  This is the realization of who it is that Jesus truly is.  He is not seperated from Gods children but alive each and every day in those who trust in Him {Galations 2:20}.  When we know who He really is, we can walk each and every day with Him.

~Scott~