Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Instructions for Being Naked

open button-up shirt man


Do you ever think about how Adam and Eve felt when the shame of their nakedness drove them to cover up with leaves and hide from God? (Genesis 3:7-8)

They possessed everything anyone could ever want: perfect unity with God, perfect unity with each other and paradise for a backyard, but temptation got the better of them didn't it?

Sometimes I wonder, would it make a difference if I was able to go back in time and explain to the first family what the consequences of their sin would be? Whatever the answer to that hypothetical question, as their children, we are prone to sell our futures and prostitute ourselves for lesser fruits.

We regularly seek to cover our shame.

Perhaps that's why we fuss and fret when our employment is taken from us, our significant others abandon us, and our lives refuse to follow the script we've drawn up...we are left naked, without something to hide behind.

To be naked is to be vulnerable, without protection, exposed to the world for what we really are.

I felt so naked, for the last year I've watched myself become this borderline psychotic, neurotic mess. Leaving behind  a favorite church, good friends, a good reputation and a good job have done a number on me (and still are). I've been tempted to give into sin patterns I  reckon I'd long ditched, made excuses for causing others harm, all the while attempting to hide who I really was behind any "leaves" nearby. Sometimes the worst thing someone could call me was godly, because I knew, I, Jean-Marc was not that. But thank God it is not up to me.

We are asked to clothe ourselves in Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14), this means we seek not to be wrapped up in ourselves, work, even other people; He should be the first thing people notice about us.

Easier said then done, I know, but no matter where you are, we all start his journey the same way: “Jesus, please do this through me”

May God teach us to wrap ourselves in Him.

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
--Romans 13:11-14

In Him,

Jean-Marc

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