Colossians 1:21-22 “Even though you were once distant from him, living in the shadows of your evil thoughts and actions, he reconnected you back to himself. He released his supernatural peace to you through the sacrifice of his own body as the sin-payment on your behalf so that you would dwell in his presence. And now there is nothing between you and Father God, for he sees you as holy, flawless, and restored." Today's episode reinforces that God sees us as "holy, flawless, and restored." We often thing the opposite. We think God is disappointed with us. We think he thinks we are sinners who are unworthy and not enough. This verse shows us how wrong we are. The episode has the lyrics of a MercyMe song called "Flawless" which also explains how much God loves us. My prayer is after you hear this episode you will write down this verse and refer to it anytime you start to doubt how loved you are by God! Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
He Sees You As Holy, Flawless, and Restored
Colossians 1:21-22 “Even though you were once distant from him, living in the shadows of your evil thoughts and actions, he reconnected you back to himself. He released his supernatural peace to you through the sacrifice of his own body as the sin-payment on your behalf so that you would dwell in his presence. And now there is nothing between you and Father God, for he sees you as holy, flawless, and restored."
There was no way that I could read a verse like the one above and not share it with you. This is something I think God wants us all to know. We usually assume the opposite. We believe when God looks at us all He sees is our mistakes and our failures. We are sure that when He looks at us He finds us unworthy and not enough. How many times have we thought that? How often have we thought negatively about ourselves and assumed God felt the same way? We all do it. Yet this verse says something very different.
I love the word choice in this verse. First, it says, “Even though you were once distant from him, living in the the shadows of your evil thoughts and actions, He reconnected you back to himself.” I love this part because it emphasizes our role in our redemption. It doesn’t say that if we do everything right and fix our relationship with the Lord, He will welcome us back. It says He reconnected you back to himself. God does the hard part. All we need to do is say yes and let Him in.
We don’t need to fix ourselves. This is where we go wrong a lot of the time. We want to do it all on our own. We want to fix ourselves up all nice and pretty before we come to the Lord, and what He is telling us is that He already sees us all fixed up and beautiful. The verse says, “He released his supernatural peace to you through the sacrifice of his own body as the sin-payment on your behalf so that you would dwell in his presence.” Due to original sin we were no longer allowed to dwell in the Lord’s presence. Now, because of His sacrifice we are allowed to. His sacrifice made us worthy. Are we going to accept that worthiness, or are we going to continue to tell the Lord that His sacrifice wasn’t enough to make us worthy?
The last part of the verse says, “And now there is nothing between you and Father God, for he sees you as holy, flawless, and restored.” This part blows my mind. I know the Lord loves me. I know He thinks I am special. I know this because I take the time to sit and talk with Him. You could know this too if you take the time to listen to all He wants to say to you. However, reading this verse in this translation hit me in a new way.
God, the all-powerful, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, sees me as holy, flawless, and restored. Can you believe that? I imagine not. I imagine that is not what the enemy wants us to believe. He whispers lies in our ears all the time about how unworthy and not enough we are. He tells us God couldn’t possibly love us or forgive us because what we did is too bad, it’s too much. The devil is a liar. God sacrificed his only son for you! Jesus died on the cross for you! Are you telling me there is something you could have done that is too big for this sacrifice to cover?
There is a song called Flawless by Mercy me and I think the lyrics really get across what the Lord is telling us today. Here are the lyrics:
There's got to be more
Than going back and forth
From doing right to doing wrong
Cause we were taught that's who we are
Come on get in line right behind me
You along with everybody
Thinking there's worth in what you do
This is what we think. We think we need to be good enough to earn God’s love, to earn his mercy and his forgiveness. We think we need to fix ourselves. We need to clean ourselves us and get all pretty before we come to the Lord. This is hard on our own and we do good for a bit and then we mess up again. As the song says, there has to be more than this back and forth. Then the song says:
Then like a hero who takes the stage when we're
On the edge of our seats saying it's too late
Well let me introduce you to amazing grace
Amazing grace, this is what we don’t count on. This is what we many not even know a lot about. I am going to be doing a series on grace soon. I will be using scripture verses to explain what grace even is and why we should all know all about it. I love this part of the song because it reminds us that even when we think it is too late, it is never too late for God. No matter how far gone we think we are, we are never too far gone for God. There is no darkness to dark for Him. There is no place to distant for Him. Wherever you are, however far away you think you are listen to the words of the verse above, “he reconnected you back to himself.” Just call out and He will reconnect you back to Himself! The song goes on to say,
No matter the bumps
No matter the bruises
No matter the scars
Still the truth is
The cross has made
The cross has made you flawless
I know you think I don’t understand. I know you think you have too many scars and too many bumps and bruises to be redeemed. You absolutely believe that God looks at some people and sees them as “holy, flawless, and restored.” However, He knows the truth about you and that is that you are too damaged, to far gone. This is the enemy lying to you. He tells you these lies because He knows you will believe them. He tells you these lies because He knows the truth is too crazy to believe. The truth is that God loves you, scars in all. He allowed those scars so because they made you stronger. He allowed those scars because He knew he could use them to make you into the person you are today. He loves the person you are today.
He doesn’t see the damaged person you see when you look in the mirror. He sees someone who has weathered the storm and is still standing. He sees someone who has had so much trauma in his or her life and yet is still persevering. He looks at you, yes you, and sees his son or daughter whom He loves so much. This scripture verse gives us all the proof we need to see that God doesn’t see us as broken, He sees us as redeemed! The last verse of the song says:
No matter the hurt
Or how deep the wound is
No matter the pain
Still the truth is
The cross has made
The cross has made you flawless
I know this is hard to believe. It is contrary to what the world wants us to believe. The world wants us to think we have to earn everything and that we are only loved and adored when we deserve it. When we do things that earn these feelings or this respect. The enemy tells us the opposite as well because he knows it is easier to believe. He knows it doesn’t take any effort to believe we are worthless and not enough. He has convinced the world to reinforce this over and over again with the media.
However, God’s ways are not our ways. He never meant for us to be like the rest of the world. He created us to be set apart. He created us to live in this world, but not be of this world. He sacrificed His son for us and all we need to do is accept this amazing grace that He lavishes upon on. All we need to do is allow Him to come and reconnect us back to Him. I want to leave you with the verse today as it is powerful and I hope you write it down somewhere and read it often. I hope any time you start to feel like God doesn’t like you, or that He feels you are unworthy or not enough, you will read this verse and be reminded of the truth of how God really sees you!
“Even though you were once distant from him, living in the shadows of your evil thoughts and actions, he reconnected you back to himself. He released his supernatural peace to you through the sacrifice of his own body as the sin-payment on your behalf so that you would dwell in his presence. And now there is nothing between you and Father God, for he sees you as holy, flawless, and restored.”
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless everyone listening to this episode. Lord, I ask that you help each one of them understand how loved they are by you. I ask you that you help them move this information from their head to their heart. I ask that you help us to see ourselves through your eyes. I ask that you help us to know how you really see us. I ask that you help us to understand your amazing grace more! We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I am happy to be back safely from my trip to Scotland. I am sad I had to come home without Noah, but I know this will be an amazing adventure for him! I am grateful we ran into another young man studying over there while we were at a store. They are both engineering majors and both in the same dorm, so I felt a bit better leaving. I just sent out the September newsletter with a photo of Noah and me with all the details about our trip and the various ways I can help you grow in your faith. If you are not on the list to get my newsletter you can click on the link below or email me at Catherine@findingtruenorthcoaching and I can send you that newsletter and you can stay up to date with all that is going on in my world. I want to remind everyone that the retreat is coming up soon. If you have not registered please do so as I have to give the count of how many are coming to the retreat center a week ahead of time. There is a link below for more information on the retreat as well! I look forward to bringing you a Witness tomorrow for Witness Wednesday. Remember Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day and may the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you!
Today’s Word from the Lord was received in March 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “My dear children, I would love for you to see yourself as I see you. I have forgiven you. Now it's time to forgive yourselves. I have made you whole, righteous, pure, and given you dignity. See yourself as I see you, full of love, joy, compassion. See yourself as I see you.”