It seems as though my journey is becoming more about stories from the counseling program. I find that as I am working with these others, I find new truths for myself. Here is the most recent one.

This morning I will be meeting with a young man who has had a struggling childhood. He is the oldest of 8 children. His reason for coming is his addiction to pornography. As I listened to him last week he said towards the end of the session that some people think he is arrogant. He went onto say that he isn’t really, but he thinks he needs to defend himself to others because of his sinfulness and being told that he is “bad”. When someone tells him he’s bad he corrects them with “his truths” of what he calls “good”.

As I was preparing for him this morning I was journaling and Jesus pointed out how God sees each of us who have invited Him into our lives. He sees us as righteous because God sees Jesus in us. He went on to say that when we look at Jesus we tend to see Him through our sinfulness rather than our righteousness. Boy, did that hit home with me! We don’t need to defend ourselves to others, we just need to live in our righteousness and let others see Jesus in us. If one reads Ephesians 1:3-11, you find this clearly stated.

When God looks at us He sees Christ within us. When I look back to Christ I have tended to see my sinfulness rather than Christ’s righteousness. Christ is reminding me that all of my sinfulness is forgiven and to not let the sins of my past be used yet again by Satan to cloud my picture of Him–we are righteous in His Sight! Live in RIGHTEOUSNESS and let others see this in us. In so doing we don’t have to defend anything. What a humbling truth!