The Power of Posture

In my last blog, I discussed the importance of our language. In this blog, we are going to discuss the importance of our posture! Now when I say posture, I know where your mind first goes. Stand up straight, elbows off the table, and every other thing that moms tell their children when they are growing up, but that’s not what I’m getting at today. Those actions are “probably” important, but I think it is highly important to discuss our posture toward God and how this enables us to cultivate family environments! In scripture, we see that anytime a prophet was in God’s spiritual presence, they would fall before Him and declare their unworthiness. They did not take this posture because they were the worst humans to ever live, but because God’s presence is so perfect and glorious that it makes us realize how imperfect and unworthy that we really are. You see, this is a different motive than when we are before someone who intimidates us and we feel that they are better than us. In that case, we avoid eye contact and we have fear the entire time we speak to them. The posture of fear that we take before a person who intimidates us or that we think is better than us is taken out of a thought of unhappiness and shame in ourselves. We think that this person is better than we are and there is no way for us to measure up to them so we cower and beat ourselves up before them. I have seen many Christians carry this posture into our relationship with Jesus. We still look at ourselves as not able to measure up and not good enough, but from the first example of the prophets, we see that the posture we should take is one where we realize our imperfection, not because someone else’s imperfection looks perfect, but because we are truly in the presence of perfection. In His presence, we realize our sin and shame, but we realize that this perfection we stand before does not condemn our imperfection but seeks to transform it. When Isaiah stood in the presence of God and he said he was unworthy, but God purified his unworthiness and didn’t leave him in shame but transformed him to worthy. You see, when we take upon the posture that God can transform us and not condemn us, our posture toward others will reflect the same love. Your posture will not be one of “I’m better than you”, but one that says, “I am with you”. Just as Christ walked with man on earth as the Son of God, He interacted with all people and lived life with them. He cultivated a family with His followers instead of intimidating and talking about His ability and His accomplishments. Jesus did not have a posture of an intimidator and His followers’ posture was not one of cowering. Christ came to serve people and in this posture, others were feeling their imperfection transformed by perfection and in their transformation, because of Christ’s presence, they were able to be family with Christ. You see, Christ had every right to show them that He was greater than them, but in His posture of service they already knew He boasted in the Father and His humility showed His authority. As followers, when we are before Christ with a posture of humility, it transforms us and we take a posture of love to others to make them feel loved and not condemned! Go before God today and refresh your posture before Him so you can give refreshment to others!