I have just finished reading John Eldredge's Beautiful Outlaw. I struggle to make it through books at times because while reading can be so encouraging, sometimes at this place in my life I would rather take a nap. But this book was intriguing to me. I like Eldredge because he is a fun mix of passionate, clear, slightly abrasive, real, and rooted in Scripture. I will say I am not quite sure I believe everything he deduces about Jesus' personality, but I find none of it concerning. God tells us we will know as we are known, so at some point that will all get cleared up in the face of Christ in front of us. It's a really great book.
One question that he poses at the end is: "At the outset of the book I asked, 'What do you think of Jesus?' Here is a very revealing way to get at the issue from another angle: What do you think Jesus thinks of you? You discover what you actually believe about Jesus when you admit what it is you believe He thinks of you." (pg. 158)
When I read that sitting on a plane, that question drove to the center of my heart. Engage that question with me for a second. You don't have the back story of the book I read, unless you've read it too, but don't let that stop you from seriously considering that.
At first, after I was able to actually regain my breath and close my opened mouth, my heart felt crushed. I moved to reinflate it with a few arguments. First of my thoughts was, "That's an awfully self-centered question." I have an issue with self-centered faith; that it's all about me and my perspective and my comfort and my position and my view of things as good and right and loving. I personally fight that all the time. That's deceit that's as old as the Garden and it will draw us away from Who God is and what He actually does and truly what He has for us in a relationship with Him. God calls us to a God-centered faith. The Bible is a story of God, my story is God's story with and in me, and Christ is the focal point of all of history, humanity, and eternity. So I agued that to know God and this Jesus that Eldredge (and I) have worked so hard to really discover means that I will not put myself at the center of that type of question. "To be honest," my heart argued, "his original question is off base as well. Does it really matter what I think of Jesus? He is Who He says He is. My thoughts may have very little to do with the reality of Christ. What if my thoughts are wrong?!" There. Take that Eldredge. I could breathe again.
Except for this nagging yet tender place inside of me that really wanted to engage that question."I am a strong woman, I love Jesus, I can be challenged and still stand firm on my feet, ok...I will go there." What do I think Jesus thinks of me? He (Eldredge) says I discover what I actually believe about Jesus when I admit what it is I believe He thinks of me.
Before I tell you what I worked through on that airplane, I invite you to consider with me why I believe this may be a very real and good question. My heart was crushed because I knew I most likely had an issue behind that question. Not with the question, but an issue that would be answered with that question. I really didn't want to go there. I didn't want to disappoint Jesus again with more unbelief. More on that in a second. It's a phenomenal question to ask because His word to us, God's story through the Bible, is full of Him calling us into relationship with Him where He tells us who we are in Him. He died on the cross so that we could be called something different. We went from enemies to sons! We went from dead to alive. We went from old and broken to new. We went from unrighteous to righteous. We went from destined for wrath to priests that are perpetually in His presence. On and on and on in His Word He tells us that because of Christ's life, death, and resurrection, we are. If you will allow me, Ephesians 1 alone tells us a TON about who I am. I am blessed, chosen, loved, adopted, redeemed, and forgiven, I am also sealed, guaranteed, and the praise of His glory. Breathe that truth and reality in!
One of the Bible studies that God used to do a hugely transforming work in me was Believing God by Beth Moore. She puts forth, rooted in God's Word that there are 5 parts of living, active, believing faith. God is Who He says He is, God can do what He says He can do, I am Who God says I am, I can do all things through Christ, and God's Word is alive and active in me ("because I'm believing God!"). As I had argued internally, I was willing to engage those first two parts of believing faith. Did you notice it? "Does it really matter what I think of Jesus? He is Who He says He is." But unless I negate most of the New Testament that calls me to understand how to love and live in relationship to the fullness of Who He is and What He can do and has done, I have to also believe that I am Who God says I am. I think that's what Eldredge was getting at. Who does God say you are, and do you really believe it? It's a faith question that often ends up touching our feelings, and that's what it stirred my heart. It starts by asking the question: What do you think Jesus thinks of you?
So, here is how I answered this personally: My heart offered this to Jesus with total trepidation mixed with reality and shame.(The shame right away should have been a flag. It's a fingerprint of the evil one's work.) I think that Jesus expects more of me and often I have not delivered. He has set so much in front of me and has equipped me with so much: salvation, His Spirit, His word, gifts, passion, opportunities, American life, time, people around me. And so inlight of all those things, He has simply expected more out of my life and I have not delivered it. I think He has saved me and has to love me because that's Who He is, but really I just cease to fully deliver or meet the expectation out of what He has so grandly given me. My heart bled on that airplane. I project that feeling into so much of my life. At work I feel as though I never deliver what I truly could, and others work harder and deliver so much more and I feel that lack of full potential and team playing. At home I feel as though I can never fully be the mom that I should be and that my kids don't know that fully now but they will struggle later because of it. I feel as though I can't be the wife Chip needs because I am going in a thousand different directions and that whole wife thing could always be better. And so it goes with every area of my life. The expectations of me were great, and I have simply not measured up. Not to Jesus and not to others. Oh, there's forgiveness, but there's still a lacking in me. He knows it and has a holy God type of disappointment in it. That's what I thought Jesus thought of me.
On to the statement he makes after that: "You discover what you actually believe about Jesus when you admit what it is you believe He thinks of you." I took that next step. I believed that Jesus was supposed to love me but the expectations of me were great and I have not measured up. In essence I believed that as a follower of His, He has set a bar I am supposed to meet. I believed that He is Savior and will forgive me, and even love me, but He thinks of me in terms of His opportunities He's given to me and my abilities. And most of that is a lie. I have carried around a significant, crippling, long time weight because I believed that He had to be true to His Word, but His feelings about me are subject to my performance. That, as I believe Christ spoke tenderly and strongly to me on the plane, is a lie from the pit of hell. It is fundamental unbelief in the gospel. That's why it pierced my heart. That question exposed the root of the hurt, stomach issues, stress, and feelings of comparison and failure I perpectually feel. He corrected me with the gospel that says essentially this: "You are right. I am Savior, I am love, I am Forgiver, I am Giver of your gifts and passions, I am the Author of your time and Planner of your place in this world. But God set a bar a long time ago that you could never meet. You can never serve me hard enough, juggle well enough, or love greatly enough. You as a person will never meet the bar. But God's approval of you is not tied to your performance. It's tied to Mine. I did what you can't do. I did it all, perfectly, fully, met the bar, and fully pleased God. The final expression of that was My death on the cross. My resurrection says that the bar, which really leads to death, doesn't exist anymore. You are fully approved because your life is hidden in Mine. That will not change and that approval is fully at its fullest all the time, because I am. So, you are free. That's what I say over you. I "think" of you as approved and free from meeting the bar. You receive that grace and honestly, let yourself off the hook. You could never do enough. That's Who I am and what I did, and what I continue to do. So then, you can live and rest in the fact that that's who I say you are." Now I can actually believe something REAL about Jesus. I am finding that the realness of Jesus in my life as it is today will always go back to the gospel.
Talk about reinflating a heart! Nothing does more for a woman that longs for a real relationship with Christ and to do good for Him (Martha, anyone?) than to hear His gospel again, spoken right over her life, setting her free, giving her rest. Oh Jesus I needed that! Thank you!
I wonder how you answered that question. Did you wrestle with it? Did you try to opt out of it like I did? Or did you fall head long into it and receive His grace in your time of need? Do you know what He says about you? It's no different than what He thinks of you. You are Who He says You are because of Who He is and What He did, so that He can do what He says He can do and be the God He says He is in a real way in your life today.
So, I cling to the gospel in a fresh way because of a question Jesus brought to me in Beautiful Outlaw. Did I mention it's a really great book?
Just another seed of my faith,
Ginny
