Truth is Our Reality

A few weeks ago I wrote about the power of affirmation as I shared an experience of being affirmed by several young adults. Affirmation is speaking life into a person, or as Jesus would likely put it, speaking truth into a person.  For example, in John 8 when the woman was caught in adultery and brought before Jesus, he spoke the most powerfully affirming words she could hear, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and stop doing things that hurt you, you almost got yourself killed.” (Yes, I paraphrased a bit.) Imagine the power of the words, “Neither do I condemn you.” Jesus spoke truth – he did not come to condemn, but to save and to give life.
       Later, in that same chapter of John, Jesus was talking to a group of Jews about who he was – the son of the Father. Then he said, “If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you.” (The Message) I love this translation because I believe it really hits what Jesus was trying to say.
       What did Jesus tell us that we can live out? The truth that we are already INcluded in him. He is the 2^nd Adam who took all of humanity upon himself and became sin for us. He has redeemed us. He has reconciled us to the Father. Through Jesus we are forgiven. Through Jesus we have salvation. We are the new creation spoken of in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. In Colossians 2 Paul emphasizes that Jesus is our reality, we have been filled up in him. We’ve been raised with Christ and are already in the presence of the Father. This is the truth we live in. This is the truth that changes the way we think about God and the way we think about ourselves. This truth is our new reality. This is the truth that sets us free.
       The problem is, we forget this truth and we try to live in another reality. We look in the mirror and see the old man and start to believe that’s who we are. We see sin in our lives and believe we’ve got to start over and somehow convince God that we are improving. We think we’ve let God down and we’ve disappointed him, therefore he is disappointed in us. We know our thoughts and our words and our actions aren’t good enough to be considered holy and righteous so we look at holiness and righteousness as something to acquire, something to pursue and we miss out on the reality that we already have both holiness and righteousness because of Jesus and because of the love of our Father who is more committed to us than we can ever be to him.
       We forget our reality when we look around at the problems in the world and start to worry. We see the economy crumbling and we get scared about our future and we wonder if God is removing his blessings from our lives. We do this because we’ve taken our eyes off the promises of God’s faithfulness and our trust that he has things in control as part of his plan and our belief that Jesus is an exact representation of his Papa/Father. If he is good, the Father is good.
       Experiencing the truth is living in the assurance of God’s commitment to us. It is knowing God is our Papa/Father which means we are his children. It is knowing that our Papa/Father loves us intimately and will never let go of us. It is knowing we are secure in our relationship with him and nothing will change his love for us. The truth sets us free because we know who we are in him.
       The beauty of the gospel is that the truth also sets others free. God has invited us to participate with him in sharing this truth with others. Freedom comes when they know their Papa/Father and they know they are already forgiven, redeemed, reconciled, loved and INcluded.