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Walking with Jesus: Up the Mountain to Preach (Sermon on the Mount)
Matthew 5:5 Jesus preaches about those who are powerless

Romans 8:15

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of daughtership. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." (NIV)

The first hearers of this text knew that one of the deep losses for slaves was their sense of family, lineage and ancestry. Slaves did not have a last name. They carried a mark that designated to whom they belonged, but their belonging was a matter of property, not love or blood, history or future.

This is not our story. We are not slaves to our relationship with God. When we emerged from baptismal waters, we emerged with a new last name. In baptism, we were not marked as a matter of property, but of love and blood, history and future. Our relationship with God is not about slavishly pleasing. We are welcomed as children and heirs of God's abundance. In baptism, we were publicly claimed and named Christian.

With the last name "Christian" we have an eternal and purposeful value to God and the universe. We did not receive a spirit of slavery that would launch us into a stance of fear. Rather, we received a spirit of adoption so that we might face the world from the security of belonging---to the Creator of the whole universe.

Romans 8:15 in The Message say it this way....This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?"

So the question is, Am I a slave to food and to unhealthy? The question is, What's next, Papa? I think the first thing I have to do is to remember who I am. Remember what my last name is since I have given my life to Jesus Christ. My name should not be just Marilyn Smith anymore. It should be Marilyn Smith Christian. Am I living up to that name. Am I living up to my names potential? Am I remembering that I have the same power in me as Jesus had when he came back to life after three days. Am I remembering that I am not powerless when I plug into The Source? Am I remember whose I am? Am I honoring that name with every bite I take and every step I make?

What God is commanding me today is not too difficult for me or beyond my reach. Deut. 30:11

Keeping my eyes focused as I keep walking with Jesus......