So this is the final posture episode of 2021. I'm going to be soaking up the rest of this year with
my family off screen, but I do look forward to being back with you all on screen in the new year.
Today, we are going to take a posture of peace by embracing the beauty of Jesus.
Posture is a short audible fist bump to remind you God is with you in everything. Together,
we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture of perfect peace.
In Hebrews chapter 12 verses one and two, it says, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great
cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles
and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus,
the pioneer and perfecter of faith for the joy set before him, he endured the cross,
scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
So in our last episode, episode 192, we talked about the practice and the privilege of joy.
And I shared that I'm coming into a deeper understanding of how joy and peace partner
together to raise our hope and develop our trust in the Lord. And knowing that joy is essential
in order for me to be fully aware and activated by Christ in me, I just decided I'm giving myself
over to the practice of joy. And I shared a definition of joy that I feel like the Lord
gave me for the season just to give me a better handle on what it is that I'm practicing right
now. I feel like the definition of joy he gave me is embracing the beauty, embracing the beauty
in a moment, in a circumstance, in a season, in a person. Really, it's engaging with the redeemer
who is living in me, Jesus, to live with his redemptive perspective of myself and of the world
around me. And I see that this is what Jesus modeled for us when he came to earth and lived
among us. Before he lived in us, he lived among us and he carried the eyes of the kingdom everywhere
he went. He had a redemptive perspective about everything. When the religious spirit mocked him,
when the political spirit challenged him, when the enemy tempted him, Jesus never allowed any
of those things to change his perspective. He saw a world redeemed, always. And the Bible says here
that for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross. Now Hebrews chapter 12, it starts
off by telling us to throw off everything that hinders. Other translations say throw off every
weight that slows you down and throw off sin, which is all rooted in unbelief. Sinful behaviors are
just a symptom of unbelief in God. Not just unbelief in his existence, but unbelief in his
essence, in his nature, in his character. It's refusing to believe he is who he says he is.
And Hebrews 12 says throw off that filthy unbelief, throw it away so that you can run with
perseverance, the race marked out for you. As I close out this year and I start to walk into the
unknown of 2022, I want to do so embracing the beauty of Jesus. His perspective, his thoughts, his
emotions, his attitude about everything. That's what I want. Now he is the head, we are the body, always.
Jesus has preeminence. I don't want to be God, he is Lord. I just want to take him at his word.
When the creator of the universe says to you, I want to be one with you, read his prayer in John 17
for more on this. When he says, I want to be one with you, I don't want to hesitate taking him up
on that invitation. I don't want to waste any more time being double-minded about his heart
towards me. It's like, Jesus, if you want to be one with me, we're one, period. Now let's do this life
together. Let's run this race in union. I'm not going to be double-minded about this anymore.
I realize that you're not just for me, you're not just with me, but you're in me in this year that
we're walking into. Colossians 1.27 says, Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in you. Consider
the possibilities of life in Christ and Christ in you. Now here's something so magnificent,
so beautiful about Christ that you can start embracing today. Christ could have given us
judgment, right? Like rightly so, he could have come to earth and dished out judgment on all of us,
on this broken, evil, sinful world. But instead of dishing out judgment,
He died to give us his fullness, his joy, his peace, his nature himself.
He came here, he experienced everything firsthand that we're dealing with as humans today.
Manipulative, religious and political systems, a culture given over to lust, greed, violence,
broken relationships, threats on his life, betrayal, injustice, all of it.
He lived it, right?
And he could have at any moment called down fire from heaven,
called down the angels to save him.
At any moment, he could have just called it all down, had us all consumed, destroyed,
been done with it.
He could have stormed the throne room, the courts of heaven, and pronounced judgment
on all of us.
It was well within his power and authority to do so.
But instead, he pled for our mercy.
He laid down his life so a fallen world could be made full of him.
And as he is, so are we to this world.
When you read the headlines, when a politician flashes on your screen, when you read that
Facebook post that makes you want to rage, when someone who broke your heart comes to
mind, what do you do with it?
Do we use our righteousness in Christ, our access to the throne room to storm the gates
of heaven and demand fairness, demand judgment?
Or do we lay down our lives, lay down our comfort, lay down our need for judgment,
revenge, and do we plead for redemptive mercy?
This sounds like a threat, right?
It sounds like a setup to be taken advantage of.
But Jesus wasn't taken advantage of.
Jesus wasn't nice.
He wasn't a doormat.
He wasn't a victim.
He wasn't silent.
He didn't hide away from culture and society and wait for the rapture.
He wasn't disengaged.
He wasn't passive.
He just knew that he wasn't subject to anything in this world.
So he wasn't threatened by it.
And he didn't build a theology around a wrathful God to feel justified or feel safe because
he knew the father was his source in all things.
And he knew that he was secure in his father's love for him.
Do we feel secure in the love that God says he has for us?
Jesus tells us in Matthew 11 that he is gentle and humble in heart.
And he said, if we joined our life with his, we would find rest for our souls.
And as a daughter of God who is one with Christ and filled with his spirit, I've just decided
I'm not going to settle for judgment when I've been promised the fullness of his joy.
I've decided I'm not going to settle for eyes that just look at something and see what it
is when I've been given eyes to see what it could be.
We belong to, we are one with a God of restoration, redemption, and reconciliation.
What does that look like?
This is what I'm asking.
This is what I'm putting into practice.
When it comes to the mess of this world, my head is not buried in the sand.
My eyes are fixed on Jesus.
And in order to carry his redemptive perspective, I realized I got to let go of some heavy things,
things that hinder, things that slow me down, things that hold me back from laying down my life.
Things like unbelief and past hurts and wounds, things like hopelessness and bitterness, regret,
the need to please people.
I've got to lay down shame and condemnation once and for all.
My prayer for you in this new year is that you're able to let go too,
so that you can fully, freely discover and embrace the beauty of Jesus.