Trying to hide from God is a
bad tradition that began with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. 8 During the cool part of the day, the Lord God was walking in the garden. The man and the woman
heard him, and they hid among the trees in the garden. 9 The Lord God called to the man and said,
“Where are you?”
10 The man said, “I heard you walking in the garden, and I was
afraid. I was naked, so I hid.”
11 God said to the man, “Who told you that you were naked? Did
you eat fruit from that special tree? I told you not to eat from that tree.” (Genesis 3:8-11, ERV)
Today, people hide from each
other with our very own unique “masks.” It’s sometimes difficult to know when
someone is genuine, or fitting in with what others want them to be. You can
never hide from God because He knows all about you (inside and out). Romans
12:1-3 (MSG) provides a great way to finally be yourself in today’s world (with
your heavenly Father’s assistance).
So here’s what I
want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your
sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before
God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can
do for him.
Don’t become so
well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.
Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.
Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the
culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God
brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
It’s time for the real you
to emerge from behind your emotional face covering.
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