Set Free Indeed

TARA GIBBS | CONTRIBUTOR As a young mother, I took my one and three-year-old toddlers with me weekly to visit an elderly homebound widow. Seeing this woman’s joy in the hugs and laughter of my two children was a delightful gift. But, as I left each week, I began noticing unsettling thoughts in my mind and heart: “It is so wonderful that you visit this woman with your toddlers each week! What a good thing you are doing! If people knew, they would really say nice things about you.” How frustrating it felt to not be able to do one thing without pride. I knew the solution was not to stop doing the right thing, but I wondered if there would ever be freedom from this weight of sin. I wondered, “Is the Christian life just one, long slog of feeling guilty all the time?” Twenty-five years later, I would commend my younger self for identifying and confessing the sin in my heart. But I would also encourage “younger me” that a continual slog of guilt is not how the Bible describes the Christian life. Repentance was in order, but when repentance turns into one more opportunity to over-focus on self, I have missed the mark. We can construct a false, self-made identity through focusing on good works, or we can build our self-made identity by over-focusing on guilt and shame. In both cases, I am the focus...

Set Free Indeed2024-07-20T13:52:00+00:00

The High Calling of Finding Our Identity

.TARA GIBBS | CONTRIBUTOR Who am I? What defines me, motivates me, and practically shapes the thousands of small and big choices I make each day? Identity is the word for who we are and how we derive meaning. Every person either consciously or subconsciously answers the question: “What makes me “me”? When we introduce ourselves, we might tell someone what we do for work or fun. Although we might not realize it, a deeper look at daily choices might reveal unexamined ways we pursue identity—staying fit and toned, wearing hip clothes, accumulating Instagram likes, being affirmed for kind things we do, etc.  Sometimes we even seek to build identity through a performance-based Christian life. A sad story is told of a young woman who became involved with a church while in college. She came to recognize herself as a sinner in need of forgiveness and soon became a leader in the ministry. She wanted to pursue missions, but first she did some graduate work in psychology. The more she studied, the more suspicious she became of what her Christian ministry taught her about her identity as a “worthless sinner.” Through her studies in psychology, this young woman began to again see herself as a person of value. The more she studied, the freer and less burdened she felt. She began to feel less guilty and more “healthy.” Her family rejoiced to see the return of their “happy” daughter. Yet this “freedom” and “health” were at the cost of her Christian convictions because this young woman had a fundamental misunderstanding regarding a Biblical view of Christian identity.[1] God’s Word tells us true identity will not be found in jobs, possessions, the pursuit of happiness, or even trying to be “good enough for God,” but rather as we gain a deep, heart knowledge of God’s goodness TO us...  

The High Calling of Finding Our Identity2024-06-23T18:40:10+00:00

Daughters of the King

LAURA TUCKER |GUEST “This must be your twin!” I hear this often when I am with my mother. She is my mother— not my sister—and she is in her 70s and I am in my 40s. In some ways, this comment makes me wonder, “How old do I look,” but it is a compliment…she has great skin, hair, and style!  She has passed down genetic traits and characteristics, so, as her daughter, I do in fact resemble her likeness. But more than genetics, years of time spent with her has formed my facial expressions, mannerisms, and word choices in such a way that more and more I often hear, “You look just like your mother,” or “I know whose daughter you are!” Created as Image Bearers As much as I bear the image and likeness of my mother, there is One, the Lord our God and the Creator of all things whose image and likeness we all bear. Genesis 1:26-27 tells us that from the very beginning, the pinnacle of creation is in fact us, people, male and female made in the image and likeness of our Triune God. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Out of all God’s creation, it was mankind he declared was very good indeed (Gen. 1:31). God made us and gave us a purpose to fill the earth and subdue it, to have dominion over all creation. In the very beginning, we see the beautiful, purposeful design with which God created us to bear His image— His likeness in His kingdom. Fearfully and wonderfully made, each of us are knit together and formed, after the likeness of our Creator God. We were made to be fully known by Him, and in turn for us to know, love, and enjoy Him. More, we were made to be known as belonging to Him and to be recognized as His people in His kingdom...

Daughters of the King2024-05-31T15:51:53+00:00

Let’s Talk About Bodies

TARA GIBBS|CONTRIBUTOR How often do you think about your body? Constantly? Occasionally? Almost never? Some of us think about our bodies non-stop, often with shame: “My body is too fat,” “My body is too old,” “My body is too short,” “My body is too this or too that.” “I’ve got to get this body to the gym!” Most of us would agree we don’t need to spend our lives obsessing over whether we have an Instagram-influencer-worthy body, but that doesn’t mean we don’t struggle. Others of us may think bodies shouldn’t matter. They are earthly “tents” that are passing away, or they are “the flesh” we are to subdue. Perhaps we think our bodies are shameful. Sometimes we might think the solution to our body problems is to realize that bodies are unimportant. But is that what the Bible teaches about bodies? It can feel confusing to know how God wants us to think about our bodies. What is too much? What is too little? Are bodies spiritual or are bodies unspiritual?...

Let’s Talk About Bodies2023-03-24T17:51:37+00:00

Created to Create

The other day I spent a few hours painting. If I had said that years ago you could be sure I was referring to something productive like painting a room in the house. I would have been redoing ill-conceived decorating choices or cleaning up scuff marks from our family of small children. It would have been purposeful. Needed. Practical. There is simply no way I would have been able to sit, surrounded by craft-store acrylics and a mason jar of brushes, to simply to create something. Not when there were so many other, more important things that needed my attention. But that is exactly what I did, and I loved every moment. Made to Create Spending any appreciable amount of time just creating says a lot about how I’ve changed over the years, to be sure, but it says more about how my theology has changed. You see for a long time, I’ve viewed the Christian life as a sort of to-do list. A relationship with the Lord, absolutely, but defined by acts. I viewed my status as a Christian woman, a wife, a mom, a sister, a friend, all as being determined by what I did and by what I brought to the table. There is an aspect of obedience to the Christian life, what we do does matter, but for a long time that was all there was for me. Do more. Try harder. Hope it’s enough and probably do a little more just to be sure. It took me years to finally understand that we were created for more than just doing—we were created to create.

Created to Create2022-05-08T00:00:44+00:00

The Sanctity of Life

In honor of Sanctity of Human Life Sunday (January 20), I want to tell you a true story. My friend Cassandra was pregnant—with twins.  They were eagerly anticipated, and already named. At three months along, Cassandra got a call at work.  A nurse was informing her that it appeared that the babies were going to be born with Down syndrome. My friend was stunned. Twins would be a challenge, Down syndrome would be a challenge—but all together?  She called a cousin and they began to pray.  Her cousin first thanked the Lord for the babies.  “Lord, we are going to love these children, and we know you do too,” Cassandra remembers their saying to Him. “What I needed was love,” she says now.  “If I had love for these children, it didn’t matter what they had or didn’t have; I could face the future.  My cousin’s prayer was just what I needed.  I told Him, ‘Lord, we are here for your plan.’”

The Sanctity of Life2022-05-08T00:08:29+00:00
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