A Tiny Tweak - A Huge Change!

“As for the saints who are on the earth,
They are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.” Psalm 16:3

Have you seen this common picture representing a perspective or paradigm shift? If you look at it one way, you see an old woman; look at it a different way, you see a young lady.

It’s a tiny shift in your brain, a tweak in the way you see the picture.

God has tweaked my theology this past month. He’s given me a paradigm shift in how I see myself.

A while back I heard someone pray, “Lord help me, a black-hearted sinner.” I liked the phrase and began using “black-hearted sinner” to describe myself. It fit.

In fact, last year I wrote a piece called Grace – it is Amazing! In it, I wrote this line: “Grace is treating each other as if we are all saints, even though every single one of us is a black-hearted sinner.”

My friend Paula Moldenhauer, /www.paulamoldenhauer.com) a huge encourager of my writing and an incredibly Godly gal, wrote me and told me she loved what I wrote.

But she also told me her thoughts on that one line:

Here’s how I see it: I’m no longer a sinner saved by grace. I am a saint. He has made me completely new. Paul talks many times about the “new man” and how it replaces the old.

It’s just a slight tweak in my theology, but I find that if I look at myself as the new man, completely remade, I have more resilience in overcoming sin as God conforms me to the image of His son. We’re all black-hearted and broken sinners, but when God comes He gives us a new heart - a tender heart of responsive, tender flesh, not hard stone. He moves in and makes us beautiful from the inside out. The LORD showed me I have a new, tender pink heart: it is no longer black.

I filed her remarks away. This month, God brought them back to mind as He has showed me more of how He sees me. I memorized Psalm 16 and whenever I’ve recited verse 3 (see above) I’ve always thought it applied to King David, Mother Theresa and well, people like Paula.

Not so. I am a saint!! If you’ve accepted Christ as your Savior and Lord, you are a SAINT. Do you still sin? Yes, but because of what Christ did on the cross, you are not labeled as a sinner, but you are crowned as a SAINT!

It’s a tiny tweak that produces an amazing change in outlook. Think of that picture. No longer am I an old woman; I am the beautiful young lady. I am a victor, not a victim.

When I see myself this way, the confidence of God rushes in my soul and forces those insecurities hidden in the corners to get OUT! I am a SAINT!

And His delight is not just in King David, Mother Teresa or Paula….it’s in ME. And YOU!