Father, thank You for the mindset for a very productive day. I am grateful for the ability to work through the pieces and parts for our services and for the opportunity to speak with wonderful people!
Romans 12:3 (<<click here to read the passage)
I recently referred to Eugene Peterson as the one that came up with the paraphrase of the Bible that we know as The Message. I can’t even begin to comprehend the huge undertaking it was for him to accomplish that feat.
According to the NavPress website (its publisher), the Message is a reading Bible translated from the original Greek and Hebrew Scriptures by scholar, pastor, author, and poet Eugene Peterson. Thoroughly reviewed and approved by twenty biblical scholars, The Message combines the authority of God’s Word with the cadence and energy of conversational English.
I don’t use it a whole lot but after reading through the three translations I normally use in my writing (the New Living Translation – NLT, the Amplified Bible – AMP, and the New International Version – NIV), I felt the need to read another, and it just so happened that the last one I had referenced on the Bible Gateway website was The Message – MSG. And I found the last portion of Peterson’s paraphrase really spoke to me. It reads,
Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him. (emphasis mine)
Everything, absolutely everything, begins and ends with God. He said Himself in Revelation 22:13,
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. NIV
(For those of you who aren’t aware, Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and Omega is the last.)
The notes of my Life Application Study Bible, referring to Romans 12:3, state,
Evaluating yourself by the worldly standards of success and achievement can cause you to think too much about your worth in the eyes of others and thus miss your true value in God’s eyes.
God is the beginning and the end and everything in between and the only reason we have any value whatsoever, is because He places that value on us. The world’s evaluation is worthless. It is finite. The moment we take our final breath is the end of this earthly life. But with God, we are infinite.
Our identity is not found in what we own, what we do, or who we know… Our identity is found in Christ alone. That’s all that matters. That is the key to an honest and accurate self-evaluation of who we are. That is the basis of our self-worth.
Lord Jesus, help us understand. Amen.
Aug 2nd, 2023, Wed, 8:29 pm
