# Accepting Our Humanity



## StriperAddict (Apr 11, 2012)

There are many gems in this article that I pray will bless every reader.
And yes beloved, you can accept yourself as Gods _asset_... !  

*Accepting Our Humanity     
*    by   * Dan Stone


I have emphasized how God made us new creations at our 
new birth. That is rock bottom truth. In a sense, though, you 
have the same humanity now that you had before. Your spirit 
is new, but you didn't receive a new personality the moment 
you received Christ. You are still mostly outgoing, or 
reserved, or spontaneous, or considered. Your humanity is 
basically the same before and after. But can you glory in it 
now? If they put a new engine in your car, even though it still 
has rust spots, can you glory in your car?

That's what God is saying to us. "If I am willing to put a new 
engine in your car and glory in your car, can you glory in your 
car? Will you glory with Me?" That's one of the hardest 
lessons we have to learn: to glory in our humanity. To be 
satisfied with ourselves as we are. Is there a harder lesson?


Every one of us has something about our humanity-our 
personality, or for some of us our body-that we wish God 
would change so that we'd look better for Him, at least from 
our perspective. We think, "God, if you'd just take that thing 
away, I'd look better for You." That "thing" may be with us 
until they plant us six feet under.

We come to a place where we say, "Lord, even though that 
thing is still in my humanity, I'm going to praise You for it." 
You know what I discovered? The minute I started praising 
God for my impatience, I didn't see it anymore. I don't mean 
it disappeared, but I didn't have a fixation on it. I wasn't 
anxious about it any longer. That's the way God moves on in 
us, when we accept ourselves as He does.


I'm not advocating sin, by any means. I am saying that when 
we shift our focus from ourselves-some neutral aspect of our 
personality that we don't like, or, yes, even some flesh 
pattern that keeps recurring-and instead focus on Christ in us, 
God does His work in us. We are transformed into His image 
as we behold Him, not as we behold ourselves (2 Corinthians 
3: 18).

God takes those things that are fixations in us when we're 
flesh-oriented and turns them into blessings when we're 
spirit-oriented. What I despised became a blessing in 
somebody else's life. Those things become the years the 
locusts ate that God restores, the dung that God makes into a 
compost pile. He lets it sit there until it's done a work in us. 
Then we can take our humanity back and say, "It's perfect to 
God right now. If He wants to do any altering of it, He is at 
work in me to will and do of His good pleasure. If He wants to
 change it, He who began a good work in me will bring it to 
pass. He can finish what He started."

I'm not going to take my humanity back on my own terms. I 
don't want it back that way. It took me long enough to get rid 
of it-as the source of my life. When you see it's no longer the 
starting point of your life, but rather the means by which 
God's life is manifested, you can take it back. You can accept 
yourself as you are. You can accept yourself as God's asset.


Finally we are able to say, "Lord, through my family tree and 
all of the circumstances I've come through, You've made the 
outer person that I am. You live in that person, and you set 
that person in the world in a way that's going to attract some 
people to You. I'm not going to attract everybody. The ones 
You don't attract through me, You'll catch through someone 
else."

That's why we all fit together, isn't it? We fit together into a 
whole. Nobody can attract everybody. I used to try to attract 
everybody. But there are all kinds of fruit. There are oranges. 
There are apples. There are lemons. God uses all kinds. I say 
to people, "I am a lemon." God attracts some through my 
lemonness.

We don't have to be anybody else; we don't have to submit 
to anyone trying to make us like anybody else, either. We are 
free to be ourselves. God is pleased to manifest His beautiful 
variety of expression through each of us in our uniqueness.


From: Dan **Stone:**
The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out. Dallas: One Press. 2000. pgs. 115-117
*


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## hobbs27 (Apr 11, 2012)

{ You live in that person, and you set 
that person in the world in a way that's going to attract some 
people to You. I'm not going to attract everybody. The ones 
You don't attract through me, You'll catch through someone 
else."}

I like this part a lot.Some people want to go out and cram Jesus into everyone all at once, no doubt they have good intentions but it seldom works like that. Our best witnessing is done by how we live our lives. God always is working on both sides too, so when you are praying for someone because of a burden placed on you for them...God is working on them too and will give you the answers...when He sends them asking.
 Thanks for sharing that.


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## hummerpoo (Apr 11, 2012)

Really, really good stuff!  The key being submission to a sovereign God in every aspect of life.


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## gordon 2 (Apr 11, 2012)

John 20:22-23

After saying this he breathed on them and said;


"Receive the Holy Spirit. 
For those whose sin you forgive,
they are forgiven;
for those whose sins you retain,
they are retained."


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## formula1 (Apr 11, 2012)

*Re:*

Good article!

Our humanity is overcome as we see who we are in Christ Jesus our Lord:

1 Peter 2
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

That's you, if indeed you are in Christ!


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## mtnwoman (Apr 11, 2012)

formula1 said:


> Good article!
> 
> Our humanity is overcome as we see who we are in Christ Jesus our Lord:
> 
> ...



Thank you God for calling me out of the darkness.


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## mtnwoman (Apr 11, 2012)

StriperAddict said:


> There are many gems in this article that I pray will bless every reader.
> And yes beloved, you can accept yourself as Gods _asset_... !
> 
> *Accepting Our Humanity
> ...



Thanks for sharing, that is awesome!!


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## hummerpoo (Apr 11, 2012)

Thank you for the avatar Stripper.

In my imagination I am standing in a very quiet place a couple of miles from there, so that all of my senses can take in the scene, and knowing that what I feel times a thousand orders of magnitude is less than His power.


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## mtnwoman (Apr 11, 2012)

hummerpoo said:


> Thank you for the avatar Stripper.
> 
> In my imagination I am standing in a very quiet place a couple of miles from there, so that all of my senses can take in the scene, and knowing that what I feel times a thousand orders of magnitude is less than His power.



Amen!!


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## gordon 2 (Apr 14, 2012)

formula1 said:


> Good article!
> 
> Our humanity is overcome as we see who we are in Christ Jesus our Lord:
> 
> ...



Yes and this:

Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name so that they may be one like us. John 17:11

They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. 17:16
----------------------
Exodus 20

 1And God spake all these words, saying, 

 2I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 

 3Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
--------------------------------
I think this is our humanity as intended.

Now at last they know that all you have given me comes indeed from you; for I have given them the teaching you gave me, and they have truly accepted this..... John 17:7-8

Now is there reason to swing to the incorrect tree?


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## StriperAddict (Apr 14, 2012)

gordon 2 said:


> Now is there reason to swing to the incorrect tree?



None whatsoever. 

We have fruit to eat of a tree the world cannot abide, and which crucified.


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## mtnwoman (Apr 15, 2012)

StriperAddict said:


> None whatsoever.
> 
> We have fruit to eat of a tree the world cannot abide, and which crucified.



I'm an orphan, but I was grafted into the vine, and I try everyday to produce fruit. Lord help my unbelief in myself.


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## StriperAddict (Apr 15, 2012)

mtnwoman said:


> I'm an orphan, but I was grafted into the vine, and I try everyday to produce fruit. Lord help my unbelief in myself.


I have a tough enough time in my heart where there is still unbelief in my Lord. When those old tapes start playing (emotions), they bring up points of unbelief that I have to confess.  With time and the word, plus the work of the Spirit, those unbelief places go away, washed with His presence and done away by His work, as I rest and draw close to Him.  
I love moments when He does that.


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