With one bite, mankind died, and the serpent marked us as dead. He slithered strands of cloth around and around our lifeless corpse until our identity became unknown and forgotten. He laid us in a tomb where our bodies were trapped behind an immovable stone. We were left to live without the Breath of Life …
Then on a hill far away, hung the Son of God. He was beaten and battered, and gasping for air. He struggled to say, It … is … finished! He bowed His head and died, and instantaneously, the Breath of Life filled our nostrils, and our chests began to pump. The immovable stone, that once guarded the entrance to our tombs, rolled to oblivion. Our fingers wiggled, and our elbows bent. Our arms reach for the linen blinding our long-lost sight. It was then that we began the process of unraveling and peeling. What was our identity, in that dark, hopeless existence, no longer defined us! It would take sometime to remove it all, of course. It has been there for so long, but it is no longer needed. It is just a nasty, stinky reminder of our old way of living. As dead people, we needed grave clothes to function in our lifeless tomb. Now that we are alive and the tomb is no longer our captor, we can shed our old masks. We can show our true Identity and be restored to our Wholeness (Grave Clothes Completely Unravelled)!
“Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
-John 11:38-43
The Grave Clothes represent our old vision, the world’s vision. That vision makes sense in the world (our tomb) because that’s what we know and what we see. But there is now a different vision available to us, thanks to Jesus. His Vision! It is a kingdom not of this world. It is a way of seeing the world in a completely different lens. Things that looked one way, look completely opposite from this vantage point. Now, grave clothes take awhile to shed, and that’s ok. During this season, we will be jumping back and forth from the world’s vision and His vision. That’s normal as we adjust. But there will come a day when our Grave Clothes are completely removed, and we will experience Wholeness. Our Growth Process (WPD), will be full of failure and growth, and our limits will be pushed to His heights.
God desires us to experience True Life. That is a life where we experience our Wholeness, understand our True Identity, and rest in being Known. So just like the serpent dressed us in our Grave Clothes, the Father is patiently unraveling them with you. That is His Grace (Presence)!
Andrew
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