The Price That Has Been Paid

Im reading the book Velvit Elvis by Rob Bell for the second time now.  Yeah i read books multiple times cause I'm ADD'ish and dont always pick up on what all is said in books. Anyhow today I read the movement/chapter called New and there were many things that caught my hearts attention.  The main premise of the chapter is explaining that there is this newness that Christ brings when we are reborn.  Im gonna quote a few of the paragraphs that really struck me (they will be in italics and in quotation things) and are causing me to dive deeper into what God has for me.  

"God is retelling each of our stories in Jesus.  All of the bad parts and the ugly parts and the parts we want to pretend never happened are redeemed.  They seemed pointless and they were painful at the time, but God retells our story and they become the moments when God's grace is most on display.  We find ourselves asking, am I really forgiven of that?  The fact that we are loved and accepted and forgiven in spite of everything we have done is simply too good to be true.  Our choice becomes this: We can trust his retelling of the story, or we can trust our telling of our story.  It is a choice we make every day about the reality we are going to live in."  

"I was having breakfast with my dad and my younger son at the Real Food Cafe on Eastern Avenue just south of Alger in Grand Rapids.  We were finishing our meal when I noticed that the waitress brought our check and then took it away and then brought it back again.  She placed it on the table, smiled, and said, "Somebody in the restaurant paid for your meal.  You're all set."  And then she walked away.  

I had the strangest feeling sitting there.  The feeling was helplessness.  There was nothing I could do.  It had been taken care of.  To insist on paying would have been pointless.  All I could do was trust that what she said was true was actually true and then live in that.  Which meant getting up and leaving the restaurant.  My acceptance of what she said gave me a choice: to live like it was true or to create my own reality in which the bill was not paid."

You know I often live a life that is in complete contradiction with the fact that my sins have been forgiven.  I live a life questioning God if what His word says is truly true.  I think that my life my sins are bigger than what God can deal with.  How ridiculous are those thoughts?  How arrogant are those thoughts?  Who am I to live a life that screams what I have done in my life, is greater than what Christ did for the world and for me on the cross!  How stupid of me is it to demand to pay for a bill that has already been taken care of.  No matter how much I ever argue about the bill needing to be paid, it has already been taken care.  No matter how much I try to prove that I can be good enough and disciplined enough means nothing with the Cross of Christ in the picture.  Its not that we shouldn't strive for righteousness, when Christ calls us he says "Come follow me! Do what I do. Live like I live".  It means that I should live a life that reflects the truth!! That my sins have been forgiven and that the old life that I used to live is dead!!  In the book he says it like this.  

"So this old nature of mine- the one that was constantly pulling me down and causing me to live in ways I wasn't created to live- has died.  And no matter how many times that old nature raises its ugly head and pretends to be alive, it is dead."

So as I told my kids this past Sunday, remember to remember! What I mean by that is, remember what God has done for each of us in each of our lives!  Then, live a life that shows that we remember!

blessings,

sg