For the believer holding a small card she has rewritten eleven times.
The card is four inches by six, and there are ten crossed-out attempts on the back of it.
Her church is doing a thing where everybody writes one sentence about what they believe, and the sentences go up on a board in the entrance so that people coming in off the street can read them. It's a nice idea. Somebody has bought good card and proper pens.
She's been at the kitchen table for over an hour. Every sentence she writes has a not in it somewhere, and she keeps crossing them out because the whole point of the board is that strangers will read it.
We're not about rules, we're about relationship, and a line straight through it. It's not religion, crossed out harder, with the pen pressed in. Not the sort of place you'd be expecting. She sat and looked at that one for a while before she put a line through it too.
Eleven attempts, and every single one describes her faith by telling a passing stranger what it isn't.
You are able to say one whole sentence about what you hold without a single "not" in it. The written Word describes Christ in an unbroken run of positives, and the Holy Spirit makes that same fullness live in you rather than leaving it on a page.
Why the Negative Comes First
Here's the honest reason, and it isn't a flaw in her.
The negatives are true. People really do arrive at a church door assuming rules, or hypocrisy, or a particular tone of voice, and clearing that away feels like the kind thing to do. You're not scoring a point off anybody. You're trying to remove an obstacle before it trips them.
The trouble is what a negative leaves behind. "It's not religion" clears a space and puts nothing into it. A stranger standing in front of that board now knows one fact about what your faith isn't, and nothing whatsoever about what it is.
You've written those sentences. Everybody has, and it isn't defensiveness or shallowness. It's the natural instinct of somebody who's been misunderstood often enough that she starts every description by correcting the misunderstanding first.
A Paragraph Built Entirely of Positives
Here's the opening of the passage where Paul tries to say who Christ is, quoted from its first lines:
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth.Colossians 1:15-16 (KJV)
Read that for a negative. There isn't one. He's writing into a situation with real confusion in it, and he had every reason to start by clearing the ground.
He doesn't. He piles positives on top of each other until the confusion has nowhere left to stand. Image. Firstborn. By Him. For Him. Every clause adds rather than subtracts, and by the end the error has been crowded out rather than argued with.
You can describe what you hold by filling the space rather than clearing it. The written Word states Christ in unbroken positives with no correction in it, and the Holy Spirit is the one making that fullness true in you now.
A Negative Clears a Space and Leaves It Empty
Here's what I'd carry off that kitchen table if I could take a single thing away with me.
Subtraction and addition are both honest work, and they leave a reader in completely different places. "It's not religion" is subtraction: the reader now has a cleared patch of ground and no idea what's meant to stand there. "God came and got me" is addition: the reader has something in their hands.
The board in the entrance is for people walking in off the street. They don't have a wrong idea that needs removing so much as no idea that needs filling.
And that's the whole difficulty she's been having at the table for an hour. She's been writing corrections for people who have nothing to correct.
A negative hands somebody a cleared space, and a positive hands them something to hold. The written Word fills the space rather than sweeping it, and the Holy Spirit is the one supplying what goes in your sentence.
Nothing Here Is a Criticism of What You Were Taught
Let me be plain, because there's a version of this message that would hurt you and I refuse to write it.
The people who taught you to clear the ground first weren't wrong to care. They'd usually watched somebody turn away over a misunderstanding, and the correcting instinct is grief about that rather than contempt for anybody.
I'm not asking you to think less of them, and I'm not asking you to go back and correct a single person. You can keep every honest negative you were handed and still write one sentence that has nothing to subtract.
You can keep every correction and still write in positives. Scripture supplies the positive form without belittling anyone who learned to clear the ground, and the Holy Spirit adds rather than demolishes.
The Word You Can Leave Out
Here's the turn, and it's quieter than a decision and steadier than a mood.
The eleven crossed-out attempts were never a shortage of faith in you. They were the instinct of somebody who's been misread so often that she begins every description with a correction. Nobody taught you that on purpose, and nobody has thought to hand you the other shape since.
I'm handing it to you now. You're allowed to write a sentence that corrects nobody, clears nothing, and simply says what you've got.
You can fill the card instead of clearing the ground. The written Word describes Christ in unbroken positives with nothing subtracted, and the Holy Spirit makes He came and got me a sentence you can put on a board in an entrance.
Declare this over yourself
You are in Christ and Christ is in you, so what follows is not a claim made out of your own authority. It is agreement, said back to God in His own words, while the Holy Spirit carries it. How He orders the rest of it is His to decide, and He answers in His own way and in His own time.
Say this once, slowly, with the card in front of you and the pen down.
I know what I am for, and my faith is not the shape of the argument it came out of. The Word of God says Christ is the image of the invisible God and that all was created by Him, so what I hold can be said entirely in what it is. The Holy Spirit makes that fullness live in me today, and not only on a page. I don't have to correct a stranger's wrong idea before I'm allowed to hand them a true one. I keep every honest correction I was taught, and I hold this sentence over it rather than against it. When somebody reads what I wrote, they can be given something rather than shown a cleared space.
Stories in these messages are illustrations unless marked as testimony.
This message is free. Nothing here is locked, nothing is for sale, and nothing is being asked of you.
Colossians 1:15-20
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
