E005 - Who is Cheyne?
Hi, Cheyne here. Thanks for stopping by and listening to my podcast today.
So far, I’ve been giving you a few different thoughts about the life of a royal, and I covered a little bit of it in Episode 3, when I talked about my discovery that the “more” I had been looking for all my life has been inside, looking at me all this time. But I didn’t really get into all that led up to that. That’s what I’m going to do for a few brief moments in this episode.
First, let me start by saying that I am NOT a “sinner”.
I’m not even a “sinner saved by grace”.
I am a saint.
THAT is who I am.
“How’s that,” you may ask?
First, just a little background.
When I was 6 years old and a 1st grade elementary student, I was sitting in the back of a little white double-wide trailer home on wheels that was made into a traveling chapel.
I was invited to pray a prayer, to ask Jesus to forgive my sins, so that I wouldn’t go to hell when I die.
While praying this gave me a momentary sigh of relief…
I didn’t really feel that much different.
I didn’t feel like I had just picked up a “new best friend”.
Jesus was just my “fire insurance policy” to keep me out of hell.
Oh, by the way, I was still very much scared of dying at this point.
Death wasn’t something my friends and I really thought about or talked about at the time, until that day we heard about it in that little chapel.
Also, my parents didn’t go to church.
For reasons I won’t get into… reasons they didn’t explain to me until I was much older… They left church.
They stopped going to church altogether, starting around the time I was two years old.
So, the only moments when I would get any significant religious education beyond that day in the little chapel was in the summer, during Vacation Bible School.
The way I typically describe it when someone asks about my religious upbringing, is that I grew up as a member of the “First Church of the Heathen.”
Fast forwarding a few years, I finished high school, ranked 4th in my graduating class, having also played 3 sports a year for a few of those, and I picked up music also, singing, playing guitar, some piano, and even played a saxophone in the school band. My parents were musicians also, so I came by it honestly.
When I was 18 years old and in my first year of college, I really lost who I was, because I had based my identity mostly on my academic and extracurricular achievements, none of which mattered once I got to college. I can remember sitting in the bleachers at an intramural soccer field one cool spring night, looking up into the starry night sky, and asking if anyone was really up there. Well, God must’ve heard me, because as I walked back from that dark field to my dorm, I saw a sign for a group advertising fun without booze, and a strange starting time of 6:08 pm. I was a bit of a geek, so the start time really appealed to me. Looking back on this now, this was a moment where God was planting a seed in my heart.
During that group get-together, I heard people share about Jesus and a meeting being held the next week for anyone with questions. I had questions, so of course I went to the meeting.
In that meeting, I prayed another prayer… this time, to begin a “relationship” with God, receive his gift of forgiveness, and accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
While I developed a love for the Bible, I found myself caught up in a deep pool of religious differences with the other students. Some of them were Catholic, others were Protestant, and it soon became more about having a “theological position” more than about having a relationship with God. It wasn’t so much about a life of freedom, as it was about my intellect, having a relationship with my Bible, and living a life of “right thinking”. I still had a number of personal issues to work through, and I found myself constantly asking God’s forgiveness and beating myself up whenever I would make mistakes. I still very much felt like a sinner, reinforced by my other Jesus friends who identified as “sinners saved by grace”. All of this started me down a path of signing up for various self-help programs for my problems.
Fast forwarding again, through to 2021…
I found an amazing woman willing to marry me (who I’m still happily married to after 27 years), we raised two great sons, bought multiple houses in the different places we’ve lived, and I spent 25 successful years as an IT professional, earning six figures and all the extras that come with it.
From the time we met at college, my wife and I had always been regular about going to church, where WE served in various capacities, similar to what my parents did. Yet, I was still not feeling completely fulfilled. I would come home drained after long days at the office (or, in my home office during the Covid lockdowns), and I still very much felt like a sinner because of repeated mistakes … things that I believed I “ought not” do but could never seem to get past. All of the self-help programs I’d gone through just felt like a big game of “spin-the-wheel, pick a program, and if it doesn’t work… spin again”.
Bottom line, I was feeling burned out.
But then, a couple years ago, someone pointed out something I’d never seen before.
I discovered that, because of what Jesus did and finished, sin is no longer there to enslave and master me, because I’m actually DEAD to it!
And because I’m dead to it, I’m no longer DEFINED by it.
I’m actually free of its tyranny.
This means… I’m NOT a sinner!
Jesus lives in me, as me, and I live in Him.
And NOTHING can separate me from His love.
This means that, by His definition, I am a SAINT!
And if I feel the pull of sin trying to get me to give in, I can just turn my focus back toward Jesus, guilt-free and shame-free, and temptation loses.
I can rest assured that Jesus, who lives in me through the Holy Spirit, will guide me, and that I don’t have to do all of this on my own.
No more DIY spirituality, no more bootstrapping necessary - it’s a joint venture, a family business, and God has all the assembly instructions to provide as I simply be still and listen!
When I turned to God this time, I wasn’t left wondering if He existed or not.
I KNEW that He was there, because I heard His voice calling me to return.
It was just like the old story of the loving father and the prodigal son, where I was the prodigal son, with the father running toward ME with the ring and the robe, welcoming ME back into His arms of love, and into an abundant life of freedom!
He didn’t leave me to die.
He didn’t cast me aside.
He let me know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am a royal in His tribe.
And that I am His son.
And that I am His best friend.
THAT is who I am.
I now feel fulfilled every day, and it’s not because of anything I do. Because of what Jesus finished, He lives in me, and I live in Him.
I move in Him.
Before doing anything, I have my being in Him.
I am a completely new person.
I am the Father’s beloved son, in whom He is well pleased.
God has helped me see, through my union with Him, that He is my source of everything!
I am not my source for a fulfilling life.
My intellect… is not my source for a fulfilling life.
Religion… is not my source for a fulfilling life.
God, the best friend I could ever have, is my source for a fulfilling life.
So, I’m not a sinner…
Because of what Jesus did and finished, I’m free.
I belong.
And I lack nothing!
And I’m here to tell you, that THAT… is what He desires for all of us to see as His children… His ROYAL CHILDREN.
