My Inmost Being (Issue 9-2010)

Written by: Jeremy M Jobson in Local Sites, Oviedo on March 10, 2010

We continue to move through the Lenten season, renewing our hearts, souls and minds on our way toward the cross and celebration for the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I am compelled by the Lenten Reader, the recent Ash Wednesday service and the ongoing Group Study interactions around this concept of the 2 Stories in Scripture: that of Adam, and that of Christ. I cannot help but think and pray about the many conversations that are shaping week in and week out using the materials on page 10, the videos online, the reader and, most importantly, the Scripture to learn more about how these stories collide, divert, intersect and weave their way into our own stories.

I am deeply moved by how much my own story calls upon the 2 stories in Scripture — not only how the "Adam in me" walked through a big chunk of my life seeking to make myself god, or allowing so many little gods in along the way as I wandered through the world, taking notice of all the alluring, "shiny" objects that would catch my attention, for a short while, but also how the "Christ in me" would never allow me to settle for very long on anything that was less than the one true God, making all other things vulnerable to decay, rust or robbery, as it says in Matthew 6:19-20. I am humbled by the passionate pursuit of me by Christ when I was serving the Adam in me, and I am overwhelmed by the passionate pursuit of Christ by Him in me since I have responded to Him.

But most perplexing to me is the verse this week from Psalm 139:13-14 that says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (NIV). Why? Because it tells me that He knew me before I ever was, and He knew all I would do and fail to do, and be, good and bad, and He still chose to create me. Then it tells me the even harder part of that to believe, that I am one of His works, and that His works are wonderful. I am wonderful, in my innermost being, I am wonderful. Not because of me, what I do, or even who I try to be, but because of who He is, who Christ is in me!

One of my favorite songs is Switchfoot's "This Is Your Life." I love the line from the refrain, “This is your life, are you who you want to be?” The answer is that the person of Christ in us is the "who" we want to be, but there is a flesh that wages war with that every day, and just like Paul confesses in Romans 7, it is a war that is real. But Paul goes on to say that my “inner being” delights in God’s law (v.22), which brings us back to the psalm because I was created and knit there by God. Psalm 37:4 says it another way, “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (NIV). Be the Christ in you, and you will be who you want to be, in your innermost being, because that is how He made you.