I couldn't stop thinking about how this word describes who we are in Christ. God made us in His image and we have tremendous value and worth because of this truth - God made us awesome. Then there's the problem of sin that makes us flawed and can totally take us down and devalue us. But God loves us so incredibly much that He won't leave us like that. He gave us Jesus to redeem our sinful flaws and bring us right back into fabulous. It's not a onetime event however. We need to stay close to Jesus so He can continue the good work He began when we accepted His great gift of salvation. We are certainly saved when we accept His gift, but if we really want to be effective and shine for Christ we need to grow and mature.
I've been looking at our next verse of thanks. Paul is writing to the church at Philippi that he founded on his second missionary journey. Paul is in prison in Rome for his faith but that doesn't take him down. He has joyful thanks for his supporters from Philippi. They had sent him a gift that he was grateful for and he also wanted to encourage them and strengthen them by showing that true joy comes from Jesus Christ alone. That even in hardship (due to a broken and flawed world) we can have joy in our faith in Christ.
"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:3 (including verses 4-6 to complete the thought)
Prayers of joyful thanksgiving for his readers' response to the gospel are a distinctive feature at the beginning of Paul's letters. He loves his people and is overwhelmed with gratitude to God for their hearts being transformed and that their desire is to not only follow Christ but to continue the good work He began in them. They want to stay close to Christ and become more flawsome.
We are all flawed. We can't get around it. We are sinful by nature. But God loves us anyway. He knows who He created. He knows our potential. He loves us because He loves us. Not because He can clean us up, but because we are His. We are awesome because we are His. He's more aware of our flaws than we are. He's omniscient - knows absolutely everything. We can't hide any of it from His eyes. He still loves us. He takes it a step further and gives us His one and only Son who is perfect God and man to die as a sacrifice for our sin. His blood covers all flaws.
This idea of being flawed and awesome at that same time makes me think of a song about how we are simply dust and by God's loving activity in our lives we become diamonds. Due to sin, we go from not much value to great worth by accepting God's Son as a gift of grace and partnering with Him in His good work to spread His love and His Word to a hurting world.
Listen to Diamonds by Hawk Nelson by clicking on this link https://youtu.be/Yf1ARbpB0gA
Oh the joy of the Lord
It will be my strength
When the pressure is on
He's making diamonds
He's making diamonds
Out of dust
He's making diamonds
Out of us
The pressure is certainly on our friend Paul, yet he has joy and thanks in his heart for the Lord and for the good work God is doing in the hearts of the people he invested in for Christ's sake. Thankful joy doesn't come from outward circumstances but from inward strength. We must not rely on what we have or what we experience to give us joy, but on Christ in us - that makes us Flawsome! Thanks be to God!
"God loves us just the way we are, but He loves us too much to leave us that way."
~ Unknown
"And be thankful." Colossians 3:15b
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