Claim Your Birth-Right
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Many years ago, I had a conversation with a friend from church. They stated that one of their challenges as a Christian, was that their secular friends constantly reminded them of their past life and would usually ask them the question: “who are you trying to fool?”. It’s a question that you yourself may have faced before. When we embark upon a journey of change, it is sometimes difficult for persons to separate what they knew of us, from the person that we are becoming. As a result, friends and sometimes even family members may tell us cruel things similar to what I shared before, inclusive of: “stop faking it, you will never make it as a Christian; accept your nature, accept who you are!”
Interestingly, after spending sufficient time with God and scouring His word, I now get excited when I face commentary like the latter, such that my response is usually: “yes, I intend to accept my nature, I intend to accept who I am”. However, I am neither accepting it from a perspective of them nor myself, I am accepting my nature and who I am, from the perspective of God.
Remember Isaiah 43:7, whichconveys God’s thoughts on the matter:
“Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him”.
Do you know who is this “every one” that is called by God’s name? It is anyone who accepts Jesus as their Saviour and thus God the Father as their Lord. So immediately, I let people know, that God defines me and anyone else that chooses to serve Him, as vessels for His glory. Do you recall what I said in earlier devotions abut what it means to be created for God’s glory? Yes, it’s about representing God by living our lives in His will, accepting His character as our own, which is allowing the fruit of the Holy Spirit to be borne in our lives.
Again, recall Genesis one, before there was sin, God created man in His image and likeness. Due to sin, that image and likeness of God have become inherently dormant and fractured, but it still remains in us. It is within the DNA, the genes of every human being that has existed after sin. The reality is, after sin, that “image-of-God-gene” simply became latent, dormant, waiting for someone to reactivate it within us. And guess what, when Jesus Christ died on the cross, that made the provision, that generated the power, for the gene to be reactivated. 2Corinthians 5:19 from the ISV reveals the following
“for through the Messiah, God was reconciling the world to himself by not counting their sins against them. He has committed his message of reconciliation to us.”
Now, verse 21 gets even clearer with that concept of reactivating that image-of-God-gene. It states,
“God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that God’s righteousness would be produced in us.”
Lastly, let me jump back to an earlier verse, this is verse 17. This verse puts it all together for us nicely. From the KJV it states,
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new“.
Therefore, I conclude this devotion with the following points:
- God’s intent for mankind’s nature is to glorify Him, by living out His Character within our lives
- Sin has not destroyed but made latent that “image-of-God-gene” in every human being
- Christ’s death on the cross empowers the gene for reactivation
- Choosing to accept Jesus as one’ Saviour “flips the switch” and reactivates the gene
So, what are you waiting on? Claim your birth-right. You were created to glorify God, you were created to be great and be a blessing. So “flip the switch”, choose God and reactivate your image-of God-gene! And for those who have already activated it, keep it activated, don’t let it become dormant again. Your life depends on it!
