Today, we're going to take a posture of peace by thinking differently about our low places
and recognizing that when God looks at us, He doesn't see what's wrong, only what's missing.
Hi, I'm Lindsay Van Zale. Posture is a podcast that serves as a short audible fist bump to remind
you that God is in everything. Together, we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture
of perfect peace. So last week, I joined Graham Cook for a three-day challenge on Facebook,
where together with people from all over the world, we explored this question. Do we really
believe what God believes about us? And today, I'm going to be sharing a clip from a conversation
that Graham and I had based on Roman 611 that says, so you must also consider yourselves
dead to sin and alive to God, and 2 Corinthians 517 that says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
the new creation has come, the old has gone, and the new is here. And Graham and I discussed
the implications these truths have when our lives sometimes still feel dead. But you know,
key number one, back to key number one, the three are only focused on the me who is alive. You know,
I realized I have to stop thinking like a dead person.
Exactly. And you know, you talk about the negative emotions, Graham, surrounding the
sin habits in our lives. You know, sin is a memory for those who have become alive to God.
And so that's why sometimes it feels like we haven't quite died because we still have some
of those sin habits. And I've had to remind myself, you know, Jesus died and broke every form of sin
over me, but he also washed away its residue, those negative emotions. So things like anxiety,
panic, fear, chronic stress, self hatred, despair, those died with Christ, right? And they weren't
raised again, right? And everything that made life punishing, right? So even those things like
anxiety, you know, things that just make life suck, those Jesus took to the grave to stay.
And he's given us this beautiful life that we can walk in, not just in the life to come,
but in the here and now. And it's a life that they actually help us to live. Yes. The thing that I
love about it is, you know, we all know that there are issues in our lives, some of them from our
past, some of them in our memory, some of them because we've lived under performance or legalism.
And, you know, we don't realize that we're fully dead. And the beautiful thing about the process
is that is exactly where God chooses to live with you. He lives with you in the low places.
He lives with you in your limitation, because he knows that's where you need the most help.
So that's where you meet the biggest sense of his presence. When you're, you know, when you're
learning how to come up, when you feel like you're struggling, but you're not really, you just you
don't know how things work, mostly. And what he's doing is he's training your mind, he's giving you
a new lens of how to see yourself, he's giving you a new mindset, and then he's giving you new language.
But the beautiful part of this for me has been, in all my low places where I was learning how to
put off and how to put on, I didn't always do it the best way, because when it's new,
you know, it's a process, you have to keep doing it until it becomes normal.
But the thing I loved about it was, that's where he never left me. That's where he showed up.
Every single time, I'm right here. I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. In all your learning,
I am present. And that is a beautiful promise, you know, you consider yourself dead to sin,
and then be alive to me, and I'll teach you how that works. So we're never dealing with that
anymore, because it's dead. But we're dealing with this, I'm going to teach you how I see you, how I
think about you. This is how I'm going to talk to you. And this is where I want to engage with you.
I want to be in the places that you don't like. I want to be right there in that place. And I'm
giving you a permanent helper, a permanent trainer. And life is going to be sweet, once you realize
how we work in you. And so that to me is, it takes the struggle away, and puts delight in its place.
This is a delightful process. And that's why I love it.
I love that because the enemy, you know, his language is lies and accusation.
The Bible said he's the father of all lies and he's the accuser of God's people.
And so often he tries to use those low places, the places that God actually delights in because he's transforming us in those places.
But the enemy wants to use that really to beat us up.
And so we miss, obviously, often we miss the delightfulness of it because we're using it as evidence that we're not actually dead to sin and alive to Christ.
Right, right, right, right.
That's a weird thing is that, you know, why would we listen to a negative when the voice of God is so beautifully positive?
He doesn't have a negative thing against us because he knows all that negativity got put away and so he's not focused on it at all.
So this is one thing that I have loved for so many years, that when God looks at me, he doesn't see what's wrong with me.
He only sees what's missing. And he's totally committed to giving me that missing piece.
And he's standing in your low place saying, hey, got a gift. Hey, but look, I've got a gift.
No, seriously, I have a gift for you right now that will resolve this.
And he's there with patience. He's there with love and kindness.
He's there with joy because he's not going to get mad that you're not learning properly.
He's just going to say it's a process. We'll get there. But I'm committed to you in the process.
So how about you being committed to me? Because I'll make it go a little bit faster and better and stronger.
No negatives. Just the truth that sets you free. I love his heart in that whole thing.
You know, I feel his heart every day. And when I'm in a weakness, it's just brilliant to be able to say to the Holy Spirit,
you're my comforter and you're my helper. I need help right now.
And it's just great to have that confidence that God knows exactly what he's doing.
So today, remember, God is only focused on the you who is alive.
Jesus paid with his life for it to be this way. Today is not a dread. It's not a measuring stick.
It's not proof that you have fallen short. No, today is an invitation to be delighted in your secure relationship with a God
who always delights in the process of making you even more like him.
The promise of perfect peace is found in Isaiah 26, 3. And in Hebrew, it is shalom, shalom, meaning complete wholeness,
nothing missing, nothing broken. This is who you are in Jesus. Let's declare this together.
Today, I am kept in perfect peace with my whole heart. I trust the Lord. I am strong. I am victorious. I am whole.
Remember, friend, you are a living testimony of Jesus's ultimate win, not because of anything you did, but because of what he did for you.
With every step you take today, you're putting Jesus's victory on display and Satan's defeat on replay.
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