HANGING UP THE ORIGINAL!

17 04 2013

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God knows what He got when He purchased me! He knows that I am more a goofball than a gentleman! And He knows that I needed to be delivered from the sad, selfish and inconsistent individual that I know I can be! But in order for that transformation to take place, I had to man up and stop hiding in the shadows! God doesn’t work with facsimile facades! I had to open up to the Lord and give him total access to all of me! It is so easy to just get comfortable with pretending! But God doesn’t want to abide with some cheap fake when He knows the potential and the power of the genuine article that He created with His own hands!

Fake fruit can sometimes fool even the keenest eye! I have to admit that I have fallen for the old “I tried to take a bite out of the artificial fruit that looks real in the basket on the table” situation. I love apples and if I ever see an apple displayed somewhere out there for the taking then you can be sure that I will take it. But I am not a fan of fake fruit! It just doesn’t taste very good! And I have been duped into a decision to dig into wax- only to end up very disappointed and even more embarrassed! Well God is not looking for phony, fraudulent, fictitious fruit from me either! His way is to display His wonderful work through the original! He wants to put His seal on the real deal!
But we shy away from being authentic because most of us are deathly afraid of our true selves being rejected or taking a hit! We have all asked that poisonous pondering question, “What if I give my all and nobody likes it?” Worse yet, we all know that not being accepted is a very true possibility! “What if my very best gets booted and booed off the stage?” So there is a temptation to play life very cautiously and become guarded and in our hesitation to reveal the genuine article- we never get our soul off the ground. But I have learned that life is going to beat on you no matter what and if I am going to fly or if I am going to fall- I want to experience it all as the me I know I am!

Do you know that if you ever buy an original painting from an Art Gallery that has been created by a master artist- well first of all you call it “A Piece” and second of all you actually get two when you go to pick your purchased “Piece” up? Why do you receive two? You get the real one which is museum quality and very expensive and truly priceless as a one of a kind! Most people don’t want to hang the original in their homes because it could easily get damaged and so they store it away, lock safely in a vault- of course where it might be safe- but nobody ever gets to enjoy it! The other identical painting is the decoy and it is the copy that most individuals will hang for all to see! I have to ask you, “Which one would you put up in your home?” We all know the risk of displaying the real deal! It is rare! It is a one of a kind! It is irreplaceable! Yet- God longs for us to hang the original of us out there every day so that the world can see His true handiwork!

God so loved the world that He didn’t send us his body double! He didn’t give us His entourage! He didn’t present to us His public relations assistant! God gave us His one and only original begotten Son! In a human man we saw perfection up close! We tasted true love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, generosity and self-control packed up in a Person like no other! God knew that Jesus was going to take His share of hits and yet He came anyway! And what did we do with God’s greatest work of art? We hung Him up alright! We hung Him on a cross, after beating Him mercilessly and He went through it all because it was the only way that God could ever redeem us and buy us back from sin’s gallery so that we could be proudly displayed by Him in the Family Room of Glory! We weren’t cheap! For us to become a masterpiece, the Majesty of God took all that this world threw at Him and because of that- to the Lord- we are not worthless anymore! We are priceless! We cost everything God had to recreate us! And our life is that one piece that can’t and won’t ever be painted again! So what’s it going to be? Are we going to hide in a vault? Or are we going to “Hang Out” with Jesus?

God invites us to live life as we really are! And while we all may get beat on by the elements and others may try to desecrate and cheapen us with their futile attempts at abusing God’s artwork- if He is at the root then no amount of fussing will frustrate the fruit that God will be allowed to produce through you and me! I believe that God hangs our portraits proudly in Heaven’s Hallways! Our Lord delights in His work that is being done in us which include the scars, bumps, bruises and all! Let’s be honest- for most of us- it has been surviving the storms of life that has produced within us the character that most of us are most proud of! And it all goes back to the fact that God used the so-called imperfections of Jesus to make us indescribably indestructible! So let’s go God’s way which is to display the original! No artificial substitutions will do!


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