Ashes and Headdresses

A little while ago, Maurice and I took the day off together, went out to breakfast, and spent a few hours chatting over our americanos at a Caffe Vita in Greenwood about the works of God the Holy Spirit.  I was impressed with the thought that the same Spirit that was on Jesus Christ while He was on earth is the same Spirit that is alive in us ever-faulty Christians now.

We landed in Isaiah 61, which is the passage Jesus read at His first sermon - the sermon that would commence His 3-year ministry.  It begins, "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news... to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives... to comfort all who mourn... to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified."

The picture of the garment of praise burned in me and brought to mind another image - of the robe of righteousness that Jesus gives. My garment of praise, Christ's righteousness.

I was still thinking on this after we finished our coffee and when Maurice asked what I wanted to do next, I knew I wanted to go home and respond. I needed to sing or paint or something.

When we got home, I picked up the guitar and began playing. I called the song "Garment of Praise." Maurice and I worked together to make the guitar part and we recorded it on garage band.

The next few days of processing through it all, I saw that I was identifying in my dead ugliness more than my living righteousness in Jesus' works for me. As I began meditating on how I was a new creation, how I've been cleansed and am no longer hated by God, I felt a lot of deep peace and rest. I saw that it was crucial that I speak truth about my true identity as a child of the one true God to myself - and daily. I am not a sinner anymore. I may sin, but that is not not who I am.  

Really early on Sunday, I began by reading the daily devotional My Utmost for His Highest. The topic of the day? Romans 6, Christ's righteousness.  Appropriate?  It delved into how it is Christ's righteousness alone that atones for sin. It is not our own merit, but Christ's alone that God received as sufficient payment for sin.  Because of what Jesus did for me, that heaviness from sin does not weigh on me anymore.  After I read the section in Romans 6 (and took a nap), I woke with a melody in my head to sing with the guitar part that Maurice and I had worked on together a few days before. I recorded the melody and pulled out a hymn book that Maurice had given me when I began helping with worship at the downtown church.

In the book are lyrics from some hundred hymns with the inspiring stories behind them. After all these thoughts on righteousness, I flipped to the index in the back, looking for a song about righteousness. There was only one. Appropriate again? I love how God leads me. I had never heard the song before, so I sang it to the melody that had come to my mind when I woke. The lyrics fit the melody perfectly.

Later, I read the opening in an old book I've had for several years and never finished by Neil Anderson. All about wrapping our identity up in Christ and nothing else.

Then the sermon at church. It was a rough one. It should have been a rough one. But I found such comfort in it. It was like the icing on the cake of truth: God hates sinners, not just sin. I am the problem, not the solution. God doesn't hate what I do, but who I was - without Jesus. So much focus was on the work of Christ and on an identity rooted in what HE has done, and not what I have done.

The morning following all this, before I processed through it, I opened to the passage from that week's sermon and read the weekly pamphlet from our church. Pastor Mark's wife, Grace had written on, get this, the same. exact. topic. Aaaaapropriate, Lord.

So I would be pretty daft if I were to say the Holy Spirit himself did not direct this song in part.  He gave it to me, so I share it with you (now with piano)!   I hope it is a blessing to you:
Garment of Praise by fancyteresa