I was reading in the book of John with the Message translation/interpretation and I got to John 1:12 and I was forced to think about it in a different light.
I don't frequently read the Message version of the Bible, mostly because I don't have a physical copy of it, but when I get the chance to go online to http://www.crosswalk.com/ I like to check it out and read side by side comparisions with other translations.
I have never read John 1:12 quite this way before:
But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves.
Mostly I've just read it this way:
Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God (NIV Translation).
He made them to be their true selves. Obviously since the Message is not really a translation, but an interpretation, this was not originally in the text as we know it, but it spurred me on to thinking about our true selves; God's original design for us.
The truth is that we were and are made to be God's children and anything less is just incomplete. There is no peace; there is no Shalom.
(Shalom is a Hebrew word that we translate as peace, but unlike the word peace, Shalom is much deeper in it's meaning than inner calm or an absense of outward conflict. It includes wholeness, or completeness. )
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