Affirmation of God: I will be what I was made to be.

Wow, God is so very awesome and overwhelming. Give Him the chance and He will blow your mind. God has truly humbled me today. Sometimes God gives us a lot more than we bargain for and makes us realize how very limited we really are. 

But, at the very same time He builds us up to show how important our little part is. Be all you have and give all you have and the world will be a better place. You have what it takes to keep this world together just with what He has given you. 

You do not have to be anyone else but just you in the amount He has given you. He has given each of us all we need. Let me share what God has done with me today if you have a couple of minutes. Quite frankly I came to Romans 12 today with somewhat of a negative perspective. After all I am in the Celebrate Recovery Leader’s guide lesson 17 on Forgiveness. Oh well, I thought I probably won’t get many “likes” on Facebook today as this forgiveness thing is kind of a downer (how’s that for pride?)…Ok I got it God I see in Romans 12:18 that you want me to live peaceably with others so I claim my first affirmation as “I live at peace with everyone”. Ok that feels pretty good, per usual let me go back to the beginning of the chapter and see what God has to say… 

For the sake of time, just one little phrase changed me today. Roman’s 12:3 may just have changed my life: For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. 

Ok I was hearing the not thinking more highly of myself than I should. This touched me from my prayer time this morning where it crossed my mind that I have a tendency to take credit for these affirmations at times and they are not even mine. Forgive me Father for my pride and thinking more highly of myself than I should. Of course as an alcoholic I could run with the “I think soberly” affirmation.  NO, God made me stop and see that He has dealt each of us “a measure” of faith. Each of us has our own amount of faith. 

Who are we to judge another’s faith? I can only relate to the faith I have so I have no way to understand someone else’s amount of faith, do I? Do you? Do you know how much faith I have? I don’t really know how much I have so I certainly can’t begin to judge the amount you may have. But I digress…The next verse takes me to an O WOW moment. Romans 12:4 For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function,  

I know God, heard that before. We are all part of the body of Christ and we all are different parts. What would the world be like if we were all eyeballs? The word function stood out, I went to www.dictionary.com and found this under definition of function: “the purpose for which something is designed or exists;”  

O wow, now we are getting some where. There’s an affirmation for you “I will serve my purpose”. But then I went to the www.biblegateway.com and looked up Romans 12:4 and read various translations and came across two statements in THE MESSAGE that the Spirit welcomed: “Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body.”  And “let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.” 

Thank You God, I hope this means as much to others as it has me. But hey, to each in his or her own portion.  Help us to just be who you created us to be. I will be who and what you made me to be. What do you find in Romans 12? 

Tom Raines