Lord, Help Me To Be The Person My Dog Thinks I Am

This is a bumper sticker that I recently saw in a tourist trap store in Orlando.  Unknown to me until a few minutes ago, it is also a country song, sung by the Bellamy Brothers.  I have never heard it but I looked up the lyrics and I think some of them fit well in this blog. 

Slapped a buncha change on the bar
said, "call it my platinum card"
then fish-tailed off in my bucket o' rust
after four bourbons n chasers
those state troopers' tasers
just made my brain feel a little more buzzed

but when I made bail and fin'lly got home
my hound was waitin' at the gate
wagged his tail when I tossed him a bone
and later that night I prayed

Lord, help me be the man
my dog thinks I am
a good and kind provider
not a drunken midnight rider
down on my knees askin' please
Lord, help me be the man
my dog thinks I am

Lord, help me be the man
my dog thinks I am
not some selfish womanizer
who can't pass a breathalyzer
down on my knees askin' please
Lord, help me be the man
my dog thinks I am

well, I went to church to learn good works
and try to live a better life
but I swore like a trucker, mispronounced Fuddrucker's
in front of the preacher's wife

O Lord, help me be the man
my dog thinks I am
a righteous, honest person
not some dumb cuss prone to cursin'
down on my knees askin' please
Lord, help me be the man
my dog thinks I am

You might be scratching your head wondering why I included this or why I even bring up the subject.  Many of you were brought up in a church, taught “to learn good works”, trying “to live a better life”; but feel “like the harder I work, the behinder I get”.  Well welcome to life.  The apostle Paul had similar feelings:

I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway.  My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.  It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.  I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?

Romans 7:19-24 The Message Bible

This was from the man who wrote more of the New Testament that any other author.  Paul was not the only person In the Bible to experience this.  Look at the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11.  None were perfect.  They include murders, liars, prostitutes, adulterers, cowards and a womanizer; but, God sees them as Heroes of Faith.  David in the Old Testament was a liar, adulterer, murderer, polygamist but God called him “a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill all my will”. Acts 13:22

God loves us not because of who we are, how good we are or how good we think we are.  Christ died for us while we were sinners.

God doth commend His own love to us, that, in our being still sinners, Christ did die for us; Romans 5:8

When He now looks at us, He sees us as righteous.

Much more, then, having been declared righteous now in his blood, we shall be saved through him from the wrath.  

 Romans 5:9

He clothed me with garments of salvation, with a robe of righteousness covereth Me, as a bridegroom prepareth ornaments, and as a bride putteth on her jewels.  Isaiah 61:10

For him who did not know sin, in our behalf He did make sin, that we may become the righteousness of God in him. 2 Cor 5:21

Your, our, my heavenly Father sees us as righteous.  We are the Bride of Christ.  We are the Body of Christ.

For the person who has received Christ as their Savior, a more appropriate prayer should be:

Lord, Help Me To be the person:

-      that You see me as

-      that You have made me to be

-      that you have called me to be

-      to do the work that you have charged me to do