If people are really Godlike creatures, it does not take very long to begin to ask the question.” What kind of ‘God’ would create creatures that are so violent, arrogant, and self indulged as what we see in the world?”
Couple that with the gnawing fear of failure, insecurities, and general frailties that we all know deep with our “selves”. Deep in the places where we perceive the “me” that we rarely reveal to anybody. This place can be a large overwhelming part of what we call our personality, but often it is (or at least it appears to be) a smaller more controlled corner of darkness pressed away somewhere deep in the basement of our memory and experience.
We usually only release the realities of our “selves” to a few close companions and even then usually only in packaged parts and pieces just as a precaution against total exposure.
Total exposure – that’s what we fear.
We operate out of a “secret place” that always needs protecting, it is always needing, clawing after, grabbing, planning, strategizing, and executing operations in our lives to get what we think we need and keep it. Approval, acceptance, a measure of our worth, status, food, clothing, safety…
This God who created People like you and me?
We celebrate the amazing strength, ingenuity, and success of some
people against staggering difficulties and obstacles - There are
history books and newspaper records to document the “good”, the “bad”
and the “ugly”. We are embroiled in this seething brew of a mixture of
good and evil, strength and weakness, honor and perversity, wisdom and
foolishness. There is the stench of innocent blood on the soil that
grows our food, we seek for justice, but often try to hide from it for
fear of our own guilt. We build our own defenses, we form weapons that
seem to suit our hands, and we grab and hold as much as we can as long
as we can all the while knowing that in the end there is a grave for
us. History has been teaching that lesson for thousands of years.
Is this the Image of God?
At this website you will begin to find the answers.
The truth is that God is good! – He is better than we thought,
probably better that we know right now. Mankind originated out of the
heart of God – we are born to reflect and demonstrate the actual nature
and reality of the Jehovah God of the Bible. God is a giver, He is rich
in mercy, He is patient, God is Agape Love, God is wisdom and
knowledge, He is a friend to the Poor, He looks after the widows, and
notices solitary sparrows, He counts the stars and calls them by their
names, God loves justice and hates robbery and deceitful scales, God
does not weary or slumber, He never tires, He is strong in Battle and
His name is the LORD OF HOSTS. He is all this and more– and He has
never changed His mind about his purpose.
– It is not about climbing and clawing into some exclusive “get me
to Heaven when this is all over” club or about measuring out on the
good side of a divine judgment “good and evil scale” . The heart of the
matter is about Restoring that which was stolen from us - namely our
Identity.
Our identity is that which defines us to ourselves and consequently to others.
It is the “me” inside ourselves that we rarely reveal, it is our
heart. True Christianity is about bringing us back to the place where
we are what God says we are and we do not doubt it or believe anything
else in our heart, it is our true identity. Out of the heart flow the
issues of life. When our hearts are changed, everything else changes as
a result.
Restoration
True Christianity restores us to the place and condition where we
operate our lives out of our true identity as God’s own covenant
people. The Bible has two testaments the Old and the New, but the word
“testament” means “Covenant”. A covenant is a unique agreement between
two individuals or groups where by the two become one. This “one” is a
“one” that did not exist before the two parties entered into the
covenant. The two covenants that are presented in the Bible do not
conflict as may appear to some, but they compliment and reinforce one
another. They are sequential, one follows the other, and their sole
purpose is to restore what was lost, to bring us all back into a close
and intimate union with God himself.
In the Covenant we can hear his voice; we do as He says because we
are sure that He only brings our good and our satisfaction. Our true
identity is in Him, we are hidden in Him and we no longer have a need
to hide things, or horde, covet, or steal to get what we need. In our
true identity we operate in strength and confidence because His
strength is made perfect in our weakness – this is the power of a
covenant.
Even as I write these words, they sound like a goal that is still off
in the distance, sometimes even just a wispy day dream. But the Bible
tells me that His promises are good, He has authored and He is bound by
covenant to finish my Faith, so I find that the only thing lacking is
my belief in my true identity. Something else is in its place. And this
is where the true work of the Kingdom of God takes place.
Everything else flows from that.
"The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you." NIV
Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for
the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but
the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through
me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The
thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. NIV
