Changing Realities.

Meet Josh.

Josh is a Chinese-American, more on the American side. He’s American but he looks Chinese and his ancestors come from China. He loves the Steelers, pumping weights, and well…. all Pittsburg sports.

When we got off the plane coming back from China there were two lines. One was for American citizens and one was for visitors, internationals, foreigners, (anyone not American). We all moved into the American citizen’s line. But Josh, who was running behind because his luggage got left missed the turn and just followed the crowd and ended up in the international line. When entering a new country, you go through many more checks if it’s not your own country. What are you doing here? How long will you stay? Did you bring anything to sell? Blah blah blah. Security is a bit tighter for you because it’s this idea of “We don’t know you. You don’t know the way things are in America/India/China/Etc. We need to make sure you’re not bringing your own countries rules into our country.” It makes sense, happens to me in every country I go to except America is much stricter with…everything.

Here’s the deal. Josh got in the international line and starts getting all this extra checks and issues. He has to jump through many more hoops. They’re checking him extra and being strict, quick, slightly defensive towards him. They basically took away his rights as an American citizen because they thought he was Chinese rather than American. He lost his rights. This was Josh’s first time coming back to America so he thought this was normal procedure for America to do. If Josh would have known the reality, the truth, his rights – he wouldn’t have had to go through the harassment, precautions, extra work, etc. Silly Josh.

Silly us. I created this story to tell you this fact. We are who the Bible says we are not what we experience. So often we have an idea of God, an idea of the Christian life, and an idea of how things are supposed to happen because of the reality we live in. God’s good, most of the time but not always. He give us sickness, pain, struggles, so we can suffer through it. We are sinners saved by grace. We’re basically still sinful even though Jesus has died for us to free us that we could become His righteousness because I still struggle with a lot of things. I can’t seem to break free no matter how hard I try from these addictions, back talking, gossiping, trash talking someone, losing my temper with them, lusting, judging them based upon what they wear or how they look and then putting myself higher or lower to them in response. Being a Christian means being polite to everyone, never getting angry, listening only to soft Christian music on the radio, being extremely conservative, and accepting a lot of the bad in my life because it’s “God’s will that his people suffer.” Some people are called to go out and tell about Jesus and they have a special gift for that. I’m just working on reading my Bible each day to get my time in.

Everything I just said does not line up with the Bible. The parts that are in the Bible are misquoted and taken out of context. They are misapplied to our 21^st century context and simplified and watered down. Like Josh, who went through a lot more crap than he had to because he didn’t know he was in the wrong line and had to put up with it, we often suffer a lot of things that we don’t have to. Christ has paid and finished so much at the cross. The finished work of the cross provides coverage for all sin, (that means the ones you may do tomorrow that you’ll feel guilty about and let Satan beat you up over for the next 5 min, hour, 2 days, 2 weeks). In Christ there is no condemnation (Rom 8:1). There is no more bondage to sin (Rom8:2). You are not a sinner anymore – that is not how you are defined. You have been made the righteousness of God(2 Cor 5:21). You are His son or daughter and are entitled/co-heir with that of Christ(Rom8:15). Many times in a situation we’ll accept guilt, shame, or even take it on us to think “this is real repentance” rather than accepting that Christ has already taken all of that and walking away. I say this because we as citizens of heaven (Phil 3:20). We don’t have to accept all of this – instead we declare our identity, our citizen ship. “Wait, no. I’m an American. I don’t have to go through all of this.” “Wait, No. I’m a Son of God. I don’t have to go through all of this.”

What’s stranger than this are the things that Jesus said “if you believe in me, you’ll do the things that I do…but greater things.” (John 14:12). Many times we accept not doing these things because I haven’t seen it, or it didn’t work, or I don’t have that gifting. He said it, it should happen. We accept realities around us all the time that we don’t  have to. We need to fight for our rights as citizens of the Kingdom, as sons or daughters, as one’s under the power of the blood.  We don’t see some healings, encouragement, prophesy, or other incredible acts of Love from God to His people because we accepted the reality or the experience that it doesn’t happen…or it doesn’t happen to me.  That’s accepting a false reality. It’s letting the experience change your theology rather than letting your theology change your experience. It should shift things in the atmosphere. It should shift things in your daily circumstances. “Well, not everyone is joyous every day” is a piece of reality we have accepted as true even when we don’t have to. The second fruit of the Spirit is JOY (Gal 5:22). Jesus tells us to abide in Him so that “My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11) Joy is a prevailing theme throughout scriptures. Jesus doesn’t want us to be knots on a log, or to be overcome by the world, or “just having a bad day” again…for the 12 day in a row. We aren’t promised sports cars, but we’re also not promised poverty both emotionally and physically. Don’t think being a self-martyr makes you more Holy or makes you more Biblical. It actually makes you more prideful because the focus is on what you’re doing and now that Christ has already done. He comes to bring joy and life and life more abundantly. (John 10:10) If you’re not joyful, pray for joy. If you’re not patient you pray for patience. In the list, joy is 2 before patience.

We cannot let our experiences change how we read the Bible, we have to let the Bible change our experiences.

Don’t accept this false American reality. Don’t accept what your preacher says. Don’t accept what Christian radio explains. Don’t accept what I’ve said. Don’t just accept circumstances because you are in them. Let the word change you, then declare His promises and His reality and His truth into the circumstance you’re in. It’s not some cosmos thing. It’s like there’s this fog in the room that everyone has accepted and your stating what’s on the other side of the fog because God has told you it’s there and then other people begin to see it and move past the fog. There’s this false reality in America, in China, in the world that we’ve been lulled to sleep by and accepted as if things are the way they are not. As mirrored wall makes the room look bigger, a thin sheet hung up closes the room down. If you don’t know there’s another side to the room, you will live and function within the confines of the small room. But if you know there is more to the room, you will not let the sheet act as a wall and you will enjoy and use the full space of the room. We are called and given the whole room – but we have to know the reality that God states in the Bible. If we do not know it, and we don’t walk in that reality, we will live half a life, a defeated life, and such a smaller amount than what God has created for us and Christ has bought back at the cross.