God sees through lens of cross

Sir,

God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in the spirit and in truth - John 4: 24. Worshipping God in spirit and truth has a lot to do with how you believe God views you as a Christian. When God sees you, He sees His Son (Jesus Christ) not your self-effort, past mistakes etc. God sees you through the lens of the cross and through the precious blood of Jesus that was shed for your redemption and justification.

Once you begin to think that God relates to you based on what you have done or didn’t do, then you’ve fallen into self-righteousness.

Righteousness

Bear in mind that your righteousness is based on Christ, that’s why you are free to come boldly and confidently to the throne of grace. The strategy of the enemy is to make you believe that you have to earn God’s forgiveness through you contrition. In order to resist the wiles of the enemy, you have to anchor your identity to Christ; just believe that you are forgiven because Jesus was judged on your behalf and you are accepted because He was condemned in your place.

Accepted

You are accepted to God through the blood of Jesus Christ, not by the degree and sincerity of your remorse forwarded to Him. You can wallow in dirt, lift your hands high during your worshipping, but if you can’t get hold of this truth, all those ‘religious conformities’ will yield into futility.

When we are worshipping, let us not make the blood of Christ void, we are not called to worship Him feeling guilty or condemned. Worshipping is a moment of conviction not of condemnation and self-pity. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ. God’s love for you is unconditional, feel free to worship Him with great joy and liberty.

Worshipping is not a moment where you have to grovel and appease an angry God. In fact God is not a tyrant waiting to be appeased; God is madly in love with you! His nature is love. You don’t have to be sorrowful for you to feel like you have really worshipped God. Being sorrowful does not imply transformation.

You can cry your eyeballs out at the altar and still go home unchanged. What brings genuine transformation during the session of worship is having a right belief that you are accepted by God based on Jesus Christ and to have full assurance that God has already forgiven you. Stop condemning yourself during your worship session. God is not pleased to be honoured by people who are guilty and self-loathed. Match up your worshipping with God’s expectations; God expects you to feel His love, His peace, His Joy, His compassion and kindness.

Sanele Mbingo