{"id":1335,"date":"2018-07-22T20:47:36","date_gmt":"2018-07-22T20:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/?p=1335"},"modified":"2018-07-23T03:40:10","modified_gmt":"2018-07-23T03:40:10","slug":"all-jacked-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/?p=1335","title":{"rendered":"Cheer up, We&#8217;ve Messed Up More Than We Thought, But &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>\u201cWe fear if people ever truly knew us, they would not love us, but the truth is if people really knew us, they could truly love us\u201d <strong>Jon Acuff<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>One of our pastors likes to refer to all of us, including himself, as \u2018all jacked up.\u2019 \u00a0I don\u2019t embrace this truth very well, but it\u2019s intensely accurate. During the times I haven\u2019t messed up too badly, I feel pretty good about myself. But when an area of my life begins to stink, I tend to go into denial. It\u2019s easier to slather on the cologne and avoid thinking about it than to come to terms with how far I\u2019ve missed the mark.<\/p>\n<p>The truth is I am all jacked up. And I bring my imperfections into every area of my life, including my family, my job, my friendships, my\u2026 It seems the longer I live the more I realize I\u2019m not the man after God\u2019s heart I hoped I was. I\u2019m not alone in this. Toward the end of his live, Paul called himself the foremost of all sinners.<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> \u00a0But even among such great company, I struggle to fully acknowledge my sin.<\/p>\n<h1><strong>The Lie of Lovability<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>Lately, God has revealed a virus running through the operating system of my heart: <em>The more perfect I am, the more lovable I am. <\/em>Though I know its a lie, the less perfect I realize I am, the more unlovable I feel. I read what Jesus says about the sinner who washed His feet with her tears, <em>\u201cher sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little loves little.\u201d \u00a0<\/em>(<strong>Luke 7:47b<\/strong>)<\/p>\n<p>This verse is like anti-virus software targeting the specific lie which has caused havoc in my life. In Christ, God lavishes his grace upon me. What should keep me from opening up all the crevices of my heart to allow His loving grace and mercy to have full access?<\/p>\n<h1><strong>Cheer up<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p><em>\u201cCheer up! You&#8217;re a worse sinner than you ever dared imagine, and you&#8217;re more loved than you ever dared hope.\u201d <strong>Jack Miller<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Could it be that a fuller embrace of my sin will give me a deeper experience of His love?<\/p>\n<p>God is eradicating this lie which causes me to shy away from a full realization of my sin. His great love for me is washing away guilt and shame, showing me something I never expected.<\/p>\n<p>Being brutally honest with who I really am, with all my imperfections and sin, in all areas, \u00a0has far reaching benefits for me and for others:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Greater sin, greater love<\/strong> -As with the sinful woman, the more I see my sin and embrace God\u2019s forgiveness, the greater I understand His love<\/li>\n<li><strong>Eradicating Defensiveness<\/strong> &#8211; If I know I\u2019m loved, no matter how much I\u2019ve messed up, I can fully accept, without denial, when others tell me I have broccoli in my teeth<\/li>\n<li><strong>Requires dependence <\/strong>&#8211; As long as I think I\u2019m doing okay, patterning my life after the historic Jesus I read about in the Bible, I\u2019ll keep grinding it out in my own effort. However, when I see the essence of what Jesus is teaching us in the Sermon on the Mount, that I can\u2019t be perfect and can\u2019t live the Christian life without him, I\u2019ll begin to yield to His abiding Spirit<\/li>\n<li><strong>Brings freedom <\/strong>\u2013 Jesus says <em>\u201cthe truth shall make you free.\u201d (<strong>John 8:32b)<\/strong><\/em> When we give the Spirit full access to the crevices of our heart, we\u2019ll experience the freedom to fully embrace our humanity with all its ugliness and fully rest in the love of Christ<\/li>\n<li><strong>Really Good News <\/strong>\u2013 Gospel means \u201cgood news\u201d and when we truly understand that no sin is more powerful than the precious life blood of Jesus, this makes the gospel really good news.<\/li>\n<li><strong>My Grace Story Brings Hope to Others <\/strong>\u00a0When we share our junk and related victories, others can identify and hope is ignites in them. \u201cIf God can do that in his life and with his family, as jacked up as he is, He can surely help me.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Challenge: \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Think of the imperfect areas of your life. This shouldn&#8217;t be too hard. As humans, our sin is kneaded into all aspects.<\/li>\n<li>Of these areas, pick one that&#8217;s particularly hard to accept. This is probably an area you find some worth in. Just one for now. You can repeat the process if needed.<\/li>\n<li>Spend some being brutally honest with the Lord about your sin in this area. Perhaps you&#8217;ve been in denial about the extent. Then, with no hesitation, receive the cleansing power of the shed blood of Christ for forgiveness and cleansing.<\/li>\n<li>Rinse and repeat the challenge for other areas.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0Prayer:\u00a0<\/strong>Most gracious, heavenly Father. I\u2019m so sorry I hold my junk at arm\u2019s length, not fully acknowledging my sin. Thank you for exposing the lie that tells me I\u2019m unlovable when I\u2019m not perfect. What a hideous message. I\u2019m sorry for how my lack of brutal honesty with myself, has affected my freedom and perhaps even the freedom of others. Please keep me in absolute truth, exposing more and more of my junk, that you might use me to trumpet your lavishing love and unending grace to others.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993366\">&#8220;He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the <\/span><span style=\"color: #993366\"><em>praise of the glory of His grace<\/em><\/span><span style=\"color: #993366\">, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the <\/span><span style=\"color: #993366\"><em>riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us.<\/em><\/span><span style=\"color: #993366\">&#8221; <\/span><span style=\"color: #993366\"><strong>Ephesians 1:5-8b<\/strong><\/span><span style=\"color: #993366\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> I Timothy 1:15<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Hope-Remains-sequel-Beyond-Time-ebook\/dp\/B01N7ZZ7C7\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;qid=1526851607&#038;sr=8-1&#038;keywords=Hope+remains+rob+buck\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-cke-saved-href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Hope-Remains-sequel-Beyond-Time-ebook\/dp\/B01N7ZZ7C7\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;qid=1526851607&#038;sr=8-1&#038;keywords=Hope+remains+rob+buck\">Click to Purchase Hope Remains<\/a> A Time bending novel based on true events in South Carolina.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Final-Cover-for-eBook-11.30-300dpi.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1058\" height=\"2700\" alt=\"\" width=\"1800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Final-Cover-for-eBook-11.30-300dpi.jpg 1800w, https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Final-Cover-for-eBook-11.30-300dpi-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Final-Cover-for-eBook-11.30-300dpi-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Final-Cover-for-eBook-11.30-300dpi-683x1024.jpg 683w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1800px) 100vw, 1800px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>.\u201cWe fear if people ever truly knew us, they would not love us, but the truth is if people really knew us, they could truly love us\u201d Jon Acuff<\/p>\n<p>One of our pastors likes to refer to all of us, including himself, as \u2018all jacked up.\u2019  I don\u2019t embrace this truth very well, but it\u2019s intensely accurate. During the times I haven\u2019t messed up too badly, I feel pretty good about myself. But when an area of my life begins to stink, I tend to go into denial. It\u2019s easier to slather on the cologne and avoid thinking about it than to come to terms with how far I\u2019ve missed the mark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[370,641],"tags":[384,385,386,382,405,522,643,147,376,373,374,377,387,378,383,642,375,379,380,644,381],"class_list":["post-1335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lavishing-grace","category-not-afraid-of-admitting-our-sin","tag-brutal-honesty","tag-embracing-our-sin","tag-ephesians-15-8","tag-forgiven-much","tag-freedom","tag-freedom-in-christ","tag-glorious-grace","tag-gospel","tag-imperfect","tag-jack-miller","tag-jon-acuff","tag-lavishing-grace","tag-lovabilty","tag-love-luke-747","tag-loves-much","tag-missing-the-mark","tag-sin","tag-sinful-woman","tag-tears","tag-unending-love","tag-wash-his-feet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1335"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1363,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1335\/revisions\/1363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joy-in-the-journey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}