“Here’s all you need to know about Immanuel Church,  Nashville.  We call it the ‘Immanuel Mantra’: One, I am a complete idiot.  Two, my future is incredibly bright. Three, anyone can get in on this.”  This is how every sermon podcast from Immanuel Church begins.  And I resonate with it so much.  I would say it a little differently.  Not better.  Just different.

“I am SO messed up.”  And I am so much more messed up than I think I am.  I am learning that truth as time goes on.  Funny.  I wasn’t so messed up when I was younger.  (Place emoji with eyes rolling here).  Sometimes I am so aware of the mess I am and I make, I begin to wonder if I am truly saved.   Then, these words pop into my head,  “Blessed are the messed up, for their’s is the kingdom of heaven. They shall be comforted, inherit the earth and be satisfied. For they know they cannot clean up or fix the mess.  They grieve and groan over the messed up condition of themselves and the world.  They are not “too big for their britches.”  And they want, with all their heart, all of the mess made right forever. (See Matthew 5:3-6).

I am SO messed up, but I am also loved SO MUCH MORE.  Because of Christ, I am accepted by the Heavenly Father, forgiven by the blood of the Eternal Son, and assured of an “incredibly bright future” by the Holy Spirit.  The only people on a battlefield, who do not struggle with all the things that accompany a deadly battle, are the dead ones.  The evidence I am a child of God is not the absence of a mess, but the presence of a struggle.