Getting the monkey off your back

(new article tomorrow. In the meantime:

"Why do we fear? Because we have this idea that our identity and our future resides in our own abilities, skills, qualifications, mental/physical resources.

“It’s not what you do; it’s what He did that makes you valuable," assures Jordan. "It’s not what you accomplish; it’s what HE’S accomplished that gives you worth and meaning. Because He’s given you HIS value.

“At the most basic level, sin is a refusal to trust God to give you what you’re looking for in Christ. Fear really is unbelief.

“If you can get that monkey off your back that you got to be ‘good enough’ to measure up and belong and have value, then you’re FREE to let His life produce His work in and through you. As soon as you do that, there’s that humbling of your mind, that ‘lowliness of mind.’

“Listen, being 'capable' doesn’t depend on you. Would you relax and realize that? Paul says, ‘You can do nothing against the truth but for the truth.’

“In Acts 20, when Paul talks to these elders and bishops at Ephesus--when he called them together and met with them at Miletus--he says about his manner with them, ‘Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews.’

“Notice he says, ‘Serving the Lord with all humility of mind.’ That’s the inside attitude he had: ‘It’s not about me; it’s not about me being right. I don’t have to defend myself, I don’t have to make it look like I’m okay and I’m ‘qualified,’ but ‘with many tears, and temptations . . . ’ He was willing to appear weak so that the power of Christ might be the real issue.”