Who is He really?

So much of what Jesus did for us is related to our identity.  So much of our walk in this life is about His identity.  Maybe it is bigger than that simple observation.  Maybe it transcends observation altogether and it is the core of God’s message.  Maybe everything we think we know (apart from Jesus) about God and ourselves is not at all what is true about God and ourselves.  I don’t understand so many things.  What I think I know compared to what can be known is the influence of an atom on the cosmos.  So I want to KNOW something, don’t you?  Actually I want to KNOW SOMEONE, don’t you?  I believe God made me in His image so I would want to KNOW Him.  In my fallen human nature I am deceived into believing I can KNOW Him by knowing ABOUT Him.  That is the root of the Adamic dysfunction.  My judgment and discernment based on my experience and perspective creates an image in my brain about a God who holds the whole universe in the palm of His hand.  Can you see how impossible that is?  Our wrong discernment of God, our limited perspective of our Creator, our insistence on our understanding based on our interpretation of our Father is why Jesus came…to show us God.

John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (ESV)

John 18:37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” (ESV)

and just like Pilate we respond:

John 1838 Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” (ESV)

The reason Jesus calls it “good news” is the news is about a God who is good.  The reason Jesus is called Immanuel is because “God is with us” is good news.  Jesus is the complete and total and unequivocal revelation of the nature of God.  This is the heart of God:

Matt 20:26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (ESV)

The kidnapper is our fallen-nature, fallen to our selfish compulsions and our independent pursuit of life from a death giving tree.  The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not meant for us.  It was never intended for food.  Our design was consistent with the tree of life not the tree of death.  Our need for judgment is our poison.  This judgment mechanism possesses our every thought.  It is how we process everything.  It is our nemeses.  Jesus sets us free from all that.  He gives us Himself in union.  We derive our very identity from our union with a Holy and loving God who is the substance of love.  Our identity is found in Jesus.  It wasn’t changed by the cross but realized in a ransom.  Our identity was unveiled when the veil was torn.  Our true nature to be like Jesus was in our DNA from our birth and before the foundations of the Earth.

Eph 1:4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. (ESV)

We are discovering what it is like to live from our identity.  We are learning what is feels like to become one with Love.  We are being transformed in our minds to “see” what it looks like to be a beloved child of God.  We are stepping into our destiny through our identity.  We are receiving an inheritance as children by discovering what it is like to be a son or daughter of the King. I credit all the great Grace preachers and movements out there that have brought us to this point.

Now it is time to see who God is.  That may seem like a strange statement but we have so many misconceptions about our Father.  We have used our fallen processor to determine the nature of God through observation instead of through intimate relationship.  This is why we have Jesus.  This is why we have His Holy Spirit in us and joined with us and all around us and over us and upon us.  We have the constant reminder of the nature of God because He is in us.

Much like our path to self-identity it is time to take the path to God’s identity.  It is not based on our wisdom.  It is not based on “what He has done.”  We have learned in our own identity journey that “what we do” is not necessarily “who we are.”  We are learning who we are so “what we do” becomes the fruit of our revelation.  Jesus is the revelation of God.  A collection of stories and narratives of a relationship with mankind over thousands of years is not the definition of the nature of God.  Jesus is the definition of the nature of God.

Want to know what the most popular posts are on this site?  Anything to do with “wrath” or “seeing God” more clearly.  People want to find a God who is Love.  Humankind wants to KNOW a God who is good.  They aren’t trying to get away with stupid, harmful behavior.  They are trying to find a God they can trust.  That God is Jesus.  That is why Jesus is the way and the truth and the life.  Religion (the bad kind) wants to steal that truth from mankind.  Religion is a product of our fallen human nature.  It is our insistence as fallen humans to use our wisdom based on our observations and create an infallible argument about the nature of God from our knowledge.  That isn’t faith.  That is death.  Life is that we would KNOW God in an intimate-knowing way.  That is only possible in a supernatural, cosmic shifting, DNA restructuring, Spirit revealed merger with our groom.  It requires that I die to my insistence on knowing in my effort but live to the revelation of His effort.  The cross is the proof that I can trust.  The cross is the assurance that God is trustworthy.  The power of the cross kills my fallen thinker.  It is like waking up from a dream and stepping into the reality of God.  He calls it the Kingdom of Heaven.

John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. (ESV)

God is so good He meets us exactly where we are.  He met Moses on the mountain.  He met David in the fields.  He met Solomon in the Temple.  He met Joshua at the river.  He meets us where we are.  What He does when He meets us is call us into a relationship.  He calls us into a conversation.  In that relationship He reveals Himself.  So He will meet anyone in any place at any time.  When we observe someone else’s journey like the Nation of Israel we shouldn’t base our understanding of the nature of God on our observations of that relationship.  It is like judging another person’s heart.  We can’t see what is inside.  We can however know the heart of the one who is inside of us, Jesus.

Let’s stop looking for the intimate knowledge of God (eternal life) in the scriptures but instead discover the person of God in Jesus.  His identity isn’t determined by my opinion but is revealed by His presence.  In His presence I know that I know that God is like Jesus even when I can’t understand my observations of another’s relationship. That is faith.

So go ahead and ask Him who He really is.  It is more than just OK, it is your right and your inheritance.  It it your eternal life.

Yay God!

Lance