There's no need for shame . . .
The real you -- that Christ Self -- is always perfect and makes you the one-of-a-kind individual you are. The Christ is the presence of God in each of us. It's our responsibility as creations of God to express our Christ Selves. In fact, it is our only responsibility because if we do this, we will be loving, compassionate, forgiving, gracious, joy-filled, and all the other things that are part of our divine design.
"Christ" is a title reserved for anyone who becomes aware of and fully realizes the depths of his or her divine possibilities, as Jesus did.
Christ is God individualized in each of us. The Christ is not a person. Jesus is the person. The Christ refers to the spiritual aspect of him -- and of you and of all people. Jesus and the Christ-there is a difference.
Thank you God for the clarification . . .
We are called to pray in the truth of our identity. If we do not pray in the truth of who we are, then we cannot truly call prayer being with God. Being with God implies that we have actually shown up; we are actually present
We began this life inhabiting a sense of worth, born into light and innocence. But from the moment of our first cries, people were getting us all wrong. The people we loved were like mirrors in a fun house, returning distorted images of who we are. Images distorted by their own pain and brokenness. And so the hands of a broken world pushed our true self beneath the surface of life.
On occasion, we cautiously, timidly revealed ourselves to others and they acted like judge and jury. And the pain of that kind of shame can split us in two. The true self is pushed safely into the dark depths, and we quickly, resiliently learn to replace it with a more "acceptable" self. We wear this false self like a mask, all the while sitting on this undulating beach ball of the true self, trying to keep it buried beneath the surface.
We push it down with too-thin bodies, impeccable clothing, aisles of makeup, the biggest houses and shiniest cars and trophies and crowds and bank accounts and lovers and righteousness and anger and perfection and flawless children and lots of letters behind our names. We push the true self down, terrified of the moment of revelation
Our true self is a beach ball submerged by our hands of shame. And it's ready to explode to the surface.
