EVENING REFELCTION: The Ugliness In Me

CONTRIBUTOR: Shirley Joy

The Old Testament is a shadow of what Christ would do in the New Testament – an amazing redemptive work. Who would have ever thought or believed that someone like Rahab would appear in the genealogy of Jesus, but there she is in the book of Matthew – she was Boaz’s mother.

God, in His choices, is not selecting “goodie, goodie” people. He doesn’t have to. Why? His redemptive work covers all our sins and as such He can chose us with the good, the bad, and the ugly in us.

The ugliness in us doesn’t bother Him because He knows that His blood is sufficient to cleanse us and wash us from all unrighteousness. Therefore our ugliness does not eliminate us from His choice.

So He loved us with the ugliness inside of us. Jesus became sin for us on the cross so that we could become the righteousness of God through Christ Jesus.

We were sent here with a specific purpose – to do God’s will and to be ambassadors for Christ. So when He chose us, it is with the knowledge that we will be transformed by the renewing of our minds. This transformation does not take place overnight, it is a process and it needs our submission to God’s will for it to be effective.

The Apostle Paul talks about the struggle when He became a Christian. In Romans 7:14-25, he outlines the struggle we all have with our spirit man and our sinful nature – evil always presenting itself and us wanting to do that which is right but end up doing wrong. We will always have these struggles. God, the one who chose us, expects us to, when these situations present themselves, chose His way.

Do remember that this ugliness in us is what we were accustomed to doing before we became children of God so there is always going to be this struggle between our new man and our old man. We have to be very aware that our struggles will always come up because the devil wants us to fail.

As children of God, the Holy Spirit lives in us. Absolutely nothing about us is therefore hid from Him. He knows us inside out. While we can hide our behaviour and true nature from the people in church, we cannot hide them from God.

God is looking at your inner man, not the amount of work you do in the church.

When we become Christians we have to surrender all of ourselves to God. Before conversion we had a certain lifestyle and had certain behaviours. After we accepted Christ, the transformation process began. We now need to learn to walk in the spirit and follow Christ. It is the Holy Spirit that leads us through this change process.

During this process there can be no double–mindedness. We have to be willing to admit that what we are doing is wrong. And be willing to change with the help of the Holy Spirit.

God desires truth in our inward parts so submit to His will and let Him deal with the “ugly” in every area of your life.

Here is why change is necessary, our witness. The question we have to ask ourselves is, “Who are we outside of the four walls of the church?” Have we mastered one personality for church and another for home and work? Can persons at home or work say Amen to our testimony of being a born again Christian? Or, will they look at us in disdain when we are giving said testimony, recalling the ugliness coming from us as they deal with us on a daily basis?!

God wants to (and is willing) to give us beauty for the ugliness in us. Submit for you and for your witness’ sake. Allow Him to use His word to perform spiritual surgery on you to remove all that is not of Him from your inner man.

We have to also guard ourselves from clothing ourselves in the work of the church instead of clothing ourselves in the God of the church.

Many of us may be familiar with Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. [22] Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? [23] And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

Who wants to hear such words?!

Get on the surgery table (and stay on it) and let Him guide you into all truth. God has given us His Word and He is His word. We need to spend more time in His word so that He can change our inner man. Watch Him use His two-edged sword and with laser precision remove the “ugly” in us. The results of the surgery will be seen when we apply James 1:22-25 – DO what the Word says.

Never forget, we can fake it with those around us, but we can hide nothing from God – Hebrews 4:13 reminds us that nothing in all CREATION is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before Him to whom we must give account – we simply cannot fool Him.

Isn’t it good to know that where we are weak that’s when God is strong. If we are insufficient, He is all sufficient. When Jesus said it was finished at the cross, He meant that He had dealt with all our ugliness, all our sins.

Let us do our utmost to remain behind the fence of Temperance constructed by God. Behind the fence He is preparing us to be conduits of Him. He is clearing the “gunk/mess” out of our pipes so that He can flow through us to others (the witness). He wants that when we are walking through this earth, without us saying anything, the light of God can be seen in us and when persons see (and interact) with us, they see Him.

Let’s not be discouraged about the ugliness in us. Our God has conquered it at the cross!  All we need to do is to consciously commit our ugliness to Him, abide in Him, and spend more time in Him. He wants to know us as His children and we should desire to know Him as Abba Father.