I had a Twitter exchange today that inspired this question, and I thought of this when responding to something someone else said. The whole thing began when I opened Twitter under my @gngerjesus handle for the first time in awhile. A pastor whom I greatly respect, and who incidentally is the same age as myself, by the name of Steven Furtick tweeted, “You are already enough.”
Now I posted this same thing on Facebook a few years ago, and people came out of the woodwork to “educate me” on how wretched and disgusting I am to God. I even had one say that I was worthy of being burned at the stake. Hilariously, it came from a person who claimed to follow the man who said to his followers, “Love others as I love you.”
So when I saw the tweet from Steven, I noticed he just posted it and there weren’t a whole lot of comments so far, but I knew there would be many. So I decided to scroll through the replies that already came in. The first said, “I needed this today, Pastor.” The next was, “Yes! I am enough, thank you for reminding me.”
Then it went downhill from there. All of the reformed folks and people that were raised by Pastors who sucked on lemons for fun decided to comment. “I am wretched and disgusting, save for Jesus, I am not enough.” One response read, others came along talking about how they were, and I quote, “enough to go to Hell.” “People please disregard this statement, apart from Christ’s saving work, we are no where near enough.”
Another one came along that just broke my heart, “No, if I were already enough, then there would be no reason for Jesus to come and die for my sins…”
I replied to several of them, because this was the common theme that they misread Romans 6, and should probably re-read it slowly. Of course there were those that wanted the exact proof-texted part of Romans 6 by asking for the exact verse address. I replied that the whole of Romans 6 addresses how we are dead to sin and not dead in sin. Of course it fell on deaf ears.
Then the tweet that inspired this post. It was a meme of someone pointing to a book in someone else’s hand, it said “As you can see here, That’s not actually in the Bible.” My response was a simple one and read “It actually is. You ARE a masterpiece. Ephesians 2:10”
I would have left it at that until someone responded that I needed to read the two verses before that. Now some background about myself, in these last few years I have lived in Romans, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians. The primary reason, is because like Paul I was trained in one particular way of seeing things, then I had an experience that caused me to reevaluate everything I believed. I call that point my awakening, when I saw Jesus in the yard at my mom’s house holding a boombox over his head, while it played “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel. I don’t know if it was a dream or if I actually saw him in the yard, all I know it I woke with every belief shattered. The first couple of months was uncomfortable, but fun. As I dug into all that Jesus had for me to see.
One of the first revelations I received in this time frame was that I was a masterpiece, and it was hard for me to hear because I had been through a lot in my life. Up until that point I was addicted to pornography, and it was this season that I was broken free from it. I am going on three years since I have been completely set free. (I know that isn’t the same thing as Paul who was a murderer before his moment of awakening, but for me it had just as much impact for me.)
I had also been through one failed engagement and after her a marriage that left me with nothing because I married a woman who turned out to be a scammer, I won’t go into that. Suffice it to say, I hated myself, I felt gross and disgusting, that no one really loved me. But then my life started changing in 2005, and I married my current wife in 2009. I still believed that I was disgusting, I was conspiratorial, angry. I thought the Republicans could do no wrong and the Democrats were evil, yeah I was one of them. I was addicted to talk radio and to Fox News. I went to church weekly, I was in the worship team, I believed I had been called to be a prophet, one of them angry prophets is what I thought.
So after reading the two verses above the one I was pointed two, it further proved my point. Paul pointed at the fact that we had nothing to do with our creation, nor our status as masterpieces, and I posed the simple question.
Does a canvas say to itself, “I want to be a masterpiece?”
When I shared the idea for this blog with a friend, he simply replied, “of course not, canvases can’t talk.” Which is the point I was trying to make. A canvas does not tell the artist painting strokes upon its fabric that it wishes to be a masterpiece no more than our actions will ever make us such. Our actions have absolutely nothing to do with what Jesus did, who came as us, lived our lives and died as us to show that God could never be separated from the essence of who we are, after all we are created in the image and likeness of Jesus, (by whom all things were created) Jesus did not come in our likeness, we were born in his.
The truth is simply that we are his masterwork, a stroke in beauty and divine hope and joy. He relishes the fact that like him we are creative, that we are powerful like him. The whole world groans for the sons and daughters of God to manifest.
So why don’t we manifest?
Why do we retreat in Platonic Dualism of Good and Evil? Good and evil are on the same tree, Life is the other one. Again, I will expound on this topic later, but for now our focus is entirely on Good or Evil and not Life. Our society devolves into cancel culture because we are so ingrained with this idea of Good or Evil, we don’t care what it does for the Life of another.
There was another Tweet by Steven Furtick after the one I mentioned where he said “The challenge in front of you is an indication of the power within you.”
Of course the reformed folks couldn’t resist, one even said, “God must be glorified and man must be abased.” Like seriously, where is that even in scripture? That is gobbledygook concocted by people who have made God into a monster and man into a pile of literal do-do under his feet. (Yes I misspelled do-do on purpose. Most modern theologies are plagued with the idea that we must do to be, even though they may not say that outright. So it is actual doo-doo.)
So the essence of this entire blog is this, we can no more demand to be made a masterpiece than a canvas can demand it’s painter to make it a masterpiece. We have no more hand in it than a mountain did with its shape, or a happy little tree with the direction its branches may grow. You are a masterpiece because you are, that’s it. He made the moon and stars, the entire cosmos where masterstrokes of his hand, and yet his most beloved creation is you and I.
