“In your distress you called and I rescued you.”
Psalm 81:7
We’re getting very near to the end of my book in progress, “The Art of Unlearning.” I’m still eager to receive any constructive criticism or positive replies. This is the second to the last chapter, and you’ll receive it in two chunks.
This concept—of remembering daily that we are rescued, not entitled, has been life-changing for me. It changes the way I look at every day and the way I contemplate everything I receive and don’t receive. I’m not sure this chapter does it justice, but I’m hoping you, too, will be able to benefit from looking at your life through perhaps a new lens. And I welcome any help in making it clearer and more compelling in the final draft.
When Christians talk about what they “gave up for God” it sounds to me like they’re still missing sin. In truth, sin asks more of us than God does. Jesus brings freedom (Galatians 5:1), while sin enslaves us (John 8:34). Who would ever give a testimony, “I gave up slavery for freedom! That’s how much I love God! I could have stayed a slave, but I loved God so much I chose freedom instead.”
Such testimonies reveal a grotesque sense of entitlement. “Look what I could have had! But I gave it all up for God.”
I didn’t give up anything for God that wasn’t worth less than God or was already destroying me. I’ll never understand who I am and what I have been given until I understand my identity as one who has been rescued. To properly worship God and to properly understand myself, I need to unlearn a sense of entitlement, and learn instead what it means that God has rescued me when I desperately needed rescuing. He is the only one who could and did rescue me. That shapes me and defines every cell of my physical and spiritual being.
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