Grace-Onomics: God’s Exchange Rate for Shame

In 2002, staff members, Sandy Witherspoon, Dan Ascher and I traveled 24 hours to get half way around the world to Kyrgyzstan so we could teach the New Covenant message to the staff of a large Christian ministry.  While there, we were all shocked at the monetary exchange rate.  For example, $10 US dollars exchanged for about 600 SOMS which would buy an enormous amount of beautiful Kyrgyz goods.

In our world, there is also an exchange rate for an issue called shame.  Shame in this case is not being ashamed of something you did or some sin you committed or the ones committed against you. This kind of shame is more about an inner sense of being defective.  It is the overwhelming thought, “Something’s wrong with me!”  It’s a cousin of guilt, feeling very similar but not quite the same.

For those outside of Christ, there truly is something wrong with them.  Their core self, called the “old self” according to Romans 6:6 is all wrong.  It is an enemy of God and evil through and through.  We can praise God, though, that once a person is placed into Christ through faith in Him, that old self is crucified with Christ and removed permanently.  Then it is replaced with the “new self”, your New Creation identity.

Yet, if we don’t constantly remind ourselves of our identity in Christ, this world we live in can mold even in us shame based messages.  It often comes from thoughts the Accuser places in our minds or from people who criticize by throwing identity statements at us like:  “You’re stupid.”  “You’re crazy.”  “You can’t do anything right…and more.”

Let’s make this practical.  Do you know the central lie you believe about yourself which your shame based identity is wrapped around?   If not, would you stop and ask the Lord to show it to you right now?  Here are a few I’ve heard through the years.

I’m not a very good Christian.

I’m very inadequate and inferior compared to other people.

I must be the best to be important.

I’m too stupid to get my life together.

Once you know what that central lie is about you, then you can let God’s truth replace it with the genuine reality about who you are.    That is you can be renewed – change how you think – about yourself.  Here are some good examples.

Who Am I? (Taken from our Grace Life Conference) 

Matt. 5:13 I am the salt of the earth.

Matt. 5:14 I am the light of the world.

John 15:1, 5 I am part of the true vine, a channel (branch) of His (Christ’s) life.

John 15:15 I am Christ’s friend.

John 15:16 I am chosen and appointed by Christ to bear His fruit.

Rom. 6:18 I am a slave of righteousness.

Rom. 6:22 I am a slave to God.

I Cor. 3:16; 6:19 I am a temple of God. His Spirit dwells in me.

I Cor. 6:17 I am united to the Lord and am one spirit with Him.

I Cor. 12:27 I am a member of Christ’s body.

II Cor. 5:17 I am a new creation.

II Cor. 5:18.19 I am reconciled to God and am a minister of reconciliation.

II Cor. 5:21 I am the righteousness of God in Christ

Gal. 3:26, 28 I am a son of God and one in Christ

Eph. 1:1 I am a saint. (See I Cor. 1:2; Phil. 1:1, Col. 1:2)

Eph. 1:4 I am holy and blameless.

God has exchanged your shame-based identity for a grace based identity (Gal. 2:20) (Col. 3-1-4) which is dependent on what Jesus has done instead of what you have done!  Are you tired of your attempts to remove your shame through “try harder religion teachings?”   Spend time this week proclaiming the truth of who you are in Christ, and enjoy resting in the exchange of your shame for God’s grace. 

Believe it! It's the Gospel.

Live Free In Christ,

Mark Maulding, President and Founder

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!

Resurrection: Jesus is Risen and So Are You!

This week, Christians all over the world will celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, Savior and Life, Jesus Christ.  This is something worth celebrating for sure.  But what about Monday, the day after?  Will we celebrate then too?

Yes, we will when we are confident that we, too, have been resurrected!  Our resurrection is not a physical one, yet.  It is a spiritual one, which is just as real.  Read and embrace this with joy!

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved-and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus."  Ephesians 2:4-6

Please notice, the phrase "raised us up" is past tense.  God has already raised you with Christ. Remember, the old nature, your identity which defined you as a sinner in Adam, no longer exists.  Your flesh does, but not the old nature. It was put to death.  Just read Romans 6-8 and it is right there, plain as day.

Because of your resurrection, you are a new creation.  You are a child of God.  You are a saint.  You are complete.  You are righteous.  You are holy.  You are beloved.

On Easter, celebrate Jesus' resurrection and yours.  Then celebrate it again on Monday and every day after by remembering who you are in Christ.  What a glorious identity we have in Him!

  

Believe it!  This is the Gospel! 

Live Free In Christ, Mark Maulding

President and Founder 

www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2014 Mark Maulding but feel free to share it!

Grace to Receive Love

    I have a beautiful cat with thick gray hair which reminds me of a lot of people I meet.  It has a difficult time receiving love.  Often when I reach down to scratch its head, it runs away.  Occasionally, it will approach me, meowing to let me know it wants love.  But it can only receive my love for about one minute. 

   God made us to be loved.  It is a basic need of the human heart.  How do we know this?  Because God created us to need Him and God is love according to 1 John 4:8.  Yet, many Christ followers struggle to receive His love as well as people's love.

   I was one of them.  While I believed and preached that God loves us, I had minimal experience of it.  The problem was not on God's side. It was on my side.  This spilled over into my relationship with my wife and others, in that I had difficulty receiving their love.

   Our Father's love is like a water faucet.  The moment we become one of His children through faith in Christ, that faucet turns on cascading on us forever.  We are like a cup under it.  If we are turned right side up, we are filled with His love for us.  If we are turned upside down, we cannot be filled with His love for us.

   What causes us to be turned upside down has to do with our stinking thinking.  We are all programmed by the Knowledge of Good and Evil when we are born which we inherited from Adam.  Though unaware of this, it causes us to believe that we have to make ourselves loveable.  We gauge whether we are loveable by how well we perform, what other's think of us, how we look and what we have.

   Parents pay a critical role in this as well.  If we grow up in a family where grace is in place, we will experience a lot of unconditional love.  If we don't, we will experience a lot of rejection.  Either way, unless we understand the Gospel of grace, we will be hindered from receiving love.

   To be able to receive love, we need a revelation of Christ in us.  There is a great prayer in Ephesians 3:14-19 that I encourage you to pray often for yourself and those you care about, even as I do.  The prayer is basically asking our Father to deepen the revelation of Christ in us to us. 

   "When I think of the wisdom and scope of his plan, I fall down on my knees and pray to the Father of all the great family of God-some of them already in heaven and some down here on earth- 16 that out of his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you the mighty inner strengthening of his Holy Spirit. 17 And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love; 18-19 and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God's children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high his love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God himself."  Living Bible

   For me and many others I have taught and counseled through the years, receiving the revelation of Christ in us as our Life, we experienced His love for us which opened us up to be able to receive the love of others.   I encourage you to make a copy of this prayer and pray it often.

                       

Live free in Christ,

  

Mark Maulding, Founder & President


www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2014 Mark Maulding