Where I found Christ

I had been racking my brain as to where I should find or see Jesus. And I hope that what I say will encourage you and increase your love for Christ.

A few weeks ago when Josh Quade was talking about how he never saw Jesus in the sunset, or the stars, or in trees, or in nature. None of that happens for me either, I don't see manifestations of God in anything at all, not in my fellow brothers and sisters, not in children. Now I think that is beautiful prospect and is truth, and I see beauty in these things and I honestly do think and believe that Christ is in all, in each and everyone of us, the homeless as well as child and widow, but the issue is that I don't see it. I'm not even sure whether people do or not or if they take that truth by faith, regardless I didn't and don't see him in those things, one day in this life I hope to.

After racking my brain and realizing that I really don't see Jesus all too much I took a moment and realized where I see him, every minute, every day, whether or not this sounds cheesy or over rated, I find Christ in myself daily, multiple times a day, speaking to me, changing me and making me new. This may sound egotistical, "Hey, look I see Jesus in me." but that's fine think what you want.

The reason that I can see Jesus in me is because of what a monster I was, not the kind of monster that you are scared of morel like Frankenstein, socially, mentally, spiritually. I was something that you would pity, that you would wish didn't exist, like a pathetic dog that you wished your neighbor would put down already, to end it's misery, and I even had that view of myself. I was a perfect product of that fall that is a miserable creature who dreamed his best endeavor in life could be to rid the world of itself. I wished and prayed even on so many occasions that if God would just let me off myself and let me not go to heaven or hell and just drift  into oblivion, and stop existing altogether. Even after I became a Christian I thought like this, I was an exception, because I was so different, and dealing with things that no other human being that I had interacted with so far.

The son of a mother who at many times loved drugs more than here own children, lost everyone that she ever loved, everyone in her family, and her own sister won't even talk to her. The son of a father who is burdened by the lives he had taken, the revenge that he tasted, the death he's seen, beaten and sexually abused, who now spends his time being burdened by carrying the burden the my mother's drug addiction leaves him to carry and he enables her to do this. His free time he spends in devotion at the synagogue hoping that his religiosity will save him and make him new.

I found Christ and then the community that lead me there fell apart and most fell away. Community after community of believers that I would embed myself in would fall away, time and time again. Even to this day, at Ozark, the amount of deep, meaningful relationships that I have here now are outnumbered 3 to 1 of the amount of deep, meaningful relationships that I have with people who have fallen away. Because of this I had always struggled with the idea that I was supposed to fall away and be an example to everyone else, it was some bad theology but what do you expect. And I was a sinner to, not just something pitiful, and I thought that my sin justified and warranted God making an example of me. My youth pastor a few years ago was preaching and was talking to us about our worth and how God is our father and he quoted one verse, one time I heard it and remembered.

Philippians 1:6 "But being confident of this that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion till the day of Christ Jesus"

And that truth changed everything, no longer would I expect condemnation, God's perfect love drove out my fear, my sin, my guilt, my shame, and every other kind of darkness. It's true, darkness will flee when Christ is in me.

I guess i'm like this
"Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?"

So I stand here, I was creature of fear but now of courage and boldness, a completely new creature, completely, and unalterably, transformed and still being transformed,  and I feel like the man in John 9:25, who stands before the pharisees and can say nothing but that I was blind but now I see, for this reason I see Christ in me, daily. Thank you.