He is Not Ashamed of Us!

The longer I serve the Lord the more I realize something... I'm definately a broken human being. For me it has been a journey of grace. Maturity for me has not been becoming more perfect, but instead it has been the ability to accept the love of God in the midst of my brokeness. Someone who is immature in the love and grace of God will run from God when they sin. They'll beat themselves up over it. Someone who knows a little about the grace of God will not run from God when they sin. Instead, they have an understanding of His grace and acceptance and an understanding of their own sinful nature. Someone who does not have an understanding of the grace of God but does have an understanding that they are broken will live in condemnation and fear. In other words, they are perfectly aware that they are broken, but they have trouble receiving His love when they sin. Someone who doesn't have an understanding of either God's grace or their own brokeness will condemn easily, judge easily, and will not understand why people do the sinful things they do. Self righteousness comes from being blinded about ourselves and our own brokeness. The thing we must realize is that we don't know the fullness of our sinful nature. Have you ever had a situation arise where you realize a new part of yourself that you didn't know was there? You just found a part of your sinful nature that has never risen up before? Where the heck did that come from? Well, it's no suprise to God. He knows how dark and sinful we are. That's why my definition of maturity is having an understanding of both our sinful nature and the grace of God. One without the other seems to bring an unbalance to our lives.
In Hebrews it speaks about Jesus as our high priest - the one who is able to cleanse us from our sin. It gives a description of who a high priest is - there are very clear descriptions that paint a picture of who Jesus is towards us. I love Hebrews! In chapter 5 it gives the following requirements for the priests before Jesus came: 1) Must be selected from among men, 2) He represents others by offering gifts and sacrifices for sins 3) He deals gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray because he himself is subject to weakness. It was important for the priest to undersand the weakness of the people he was representing. In the same way, Jesus can be our priest and cleanse our sin because he too became weak just like you and I. The only difference is He did not sin. It was necessary that He not only represented us, but understood humanity fully. He is glad to represent us before the Father. I love 1 John 2:1,2 "I write this to you so you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world." I am blown away by the truth of this verse. Jesus actually DEFENDS us! Imagine what He tells the Father concerning you... It may sound something like this, "I know she screwed up, but look at her heart, she really loves you. I know who she is going to be in eternity and it looks much different. Her identity before me is not in her sin - it's in the fact that she will love me fully and completely and perfectly on day," or "I know he is struggling with that sin, but Father - my love covers a multitude of sin and I am perfectly able to keep him in my grace until he sees me face to face." Do you see Jesus like this? As the one who really defends you? Is that not amazing!!! (This is why it's so important we agree with the heart of Jesus about one another and not be the voice of accusation that comes from the enemy) He understands broken people and He realizes we are weak. He became one of us so He could fulfill these priestly responsibilities. This is why He deals gently with us - because He understands us in our weakness. This is why we should deal gently with one another. One who has encountered the love of God will always deal gently with others. When we encounter God's gentle heart, it seems to become a part of us as well. I love the gentleness of the heart of God and I'm so glad He deals with us gently, and not in ways we really deserve.
Hebrews 2:11 says, "...Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers." It's talking about you and I - and all of humanity. Jesus is not ashamed of us. I wonder what the angels see and think when they see Jesus freely choosing to love broken people. He could have chosen to love the angels more than us. They are glorious. They are always worshipping. They are never distracted. Yet, Jesus freely chooses to love us in our brokeness. This is the heart of God - He loves to show mercy to those who don't deserve it. He loves to treat us in ways that we don't deserve. He is not hanging His head in disappointment about the human race. His heart is satisfied because He sees something much more than we see. Where we only see brokeness He has the ability to see beauty. Where we think our sin weighs more than our "good" things, He sees a small part in our heart that we sincerely love Him and to Him that outweighs all of the sin. He doesn't only see our love for Him, but next to our sin, our love for Him outweighs our sin. Jesus is not ashamed of us!!! He's not disappointed in us!!! HOORAY!!! He does not see you as you are right now. He sees you as you will be in eternity. This is how you are defined. We need to renew our minds in the love and nature of God so we can live in the freedom of His grace and acceptance. His love covers a multitude of sins! I'm so glad mine are covered! He loves us so much - more than we will ever know! I believe we will spend eternity learning about the depths of love that He has for us in His heart. Not only that, but we will bring much satisfaction to Him becasue we get to love Him in return. The love we will have in heaven will be something none of us have ever even began to touch or experience here on earth. That's why He is so moved by someone who chooses to love Him on the earth. We can't see Him, yet we love Him! ..and we don't have to wait until heaven...it begins now!