Identity: The Prisoner Set Free

Philippians 3:3

“For we are the people of God if we worship in The Spirit of God and have our confidence rooted in Christ Jesus, not our own strength and abilities (flesh).”

Contrary to popular belief, you are not merely the sum of your experiences, positive or negative. You are the sum of what your Maker speaks over you. You can choose to agree with what He says and live out your true identity, filling out the shoes He's given you more and more day after day, or you can put your trust in your own experiences and let them define you. Many times I find my own self a mix of incongruous ideas pilfered from both of these places, but here are the two laid out plain.

If we base our identity on our accomplishments, successes, failures, tastes, interests, desires or preferences then we build the foundation of our identity on unsettled, constantly shifting, specs of sand. This is referred to as having confidence in the “flesh" in the Bible. And this practice is the sole cause of two seeming opposites who happen to actually be siblings: pride and depression, the most potent destroyers of the overflow of life and joy God intends us to have (Jn 10:10).

See, Jesus died for every person in the world’s entire history. Past, present, and future. “He died for the sins of the world (1 John 2:2)." When that happened, God forgave every sin anyone had ever done or will ever do. He unlocked the prison door that kept us from living fully alive. He knew we could not escape to freedom without His aid. We were made to live united with God and grow ever increasingly full of life, and joy, and solid reality. But the only way to do that fully is with Him, in His power.

So, He shaped His Son in the form of the key for the lock of our prison. His death on our behalf unlocked the door to our freedom. There are many passageways in this prison, many doors we may walk through, but His is the one which leads outside the razor topped walls; most merely take us from one cell block to the next - one man might, in an attempt to flee the prison of self-loathing depression, simply run to the padded room of tolerance where all things are tolerable but nothing is solid or substantial. He is trapped by new walls, but the effect is the same. Many say this is all there is in life, an endless variety of prison walls. But the joy I taste in Christ sings a freer tune. This freedom is not mandatory though. God is a true Dad, full of love and eager to grow His little ones into mature Selves. We have a will. We have choice. Countless choices in fact, which shape the Self we see as us in everyday life.

So, we work with Him. He unlocks the steel barred door keeping me from my real self and I take one step, His strength in my bones; then another, and another, in Him. A voice whispers, “I have sent you The Great Helper. He will guide you through the prison, tell you every turn you need to take and teach you all you need to know. He will empower you to do everything I ask of you. He will supply your every need and lead you to understanding. Receive Him for who He is. Lean on Him, trust Him, turn to Him, and talk with Him. He is my Spirit. I am with you."

When we receive Jesus, we receive his rescue from prison. Not a prison of this world but the prison of our selves - where we are constantly fixated on our own status and pleasure and pain. He opens me up to serve with acts of love, Him, my neighbors, as well as my self, in a way most healthy and beneficial to each. When we receive His Spirit we are connected with God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. His Spirit leads us into all truth and one of the first and most foundational truths is that we are adopted by God; the Father of all creation becomes our Father. And to bring that to full effect we must receive Him as Dad. Speak to him and say, “ I am your Daughter/Son, You are my High Father.”

This is your True Identity. God has said you are His child. He knows True Reality. Receive His words over you. Trust what He says in His Word above what you’ve heard, said, and experienced. He sees all the past, present, and future as they really are. He sees you through Jesus' blood: blameless, pure, and righteous. Trust what He sees.  Speak your agreement with His perspective--actual reality. Receive the identity He sees you as: a dearly loved child of God.

That’s who you are. Receive it. Trust it. study it. Meditate on it. And live it. Then, walk with God and set others free.

The Father Spot

We all want to be loved by our parents. We all have that deep-seated yearning for their affection and approval. It's hardwired into our nature. But, unfortunately, I've never known a single person who's had this desire fully satisfied. Everyone walks around with dull aches and sharp pains from their mom or their dad. Even the best parents make mistakes. I myself had some of the best ones I've ever heard of, but still found my heart aching at certain longings, thoughts, and memories. This part of our self hugely affects the way we develop and function as adults. That may be why psychologists and counselors often explore child/parent relationships when searching for the root of many dysfunctions.

I have a theory that parents aren’t supposed to be parents forever. In fact, the job of a parent is to raise their child up to know and receive their true Eternal Parent, God the Father, into the parental place in their heart. This is the whole reason Jesus came to earth from Heaven; to connect us into a right relationship with our True and forever Heavenly Father. That's why Jesus said, "I won't leave you as orphans when I go, but I will send you my Holy Spirit" (John 14:15-18).

A couple years ago, I found bitterness in my self harbored toward my Dad for missed time together in my childhood. He was a chiefly servant-hearted man focused on working hard at several jobs to provide for his family; a common story among children of loving parents. But a side-effect of his provision focus was that we missed out on a plethora of experiences and times together. Over time, I grew up and went off to college. When I'd come back over summer break the ache of our underdeveloped relationship would rear up and shout at me every time we were in a room together. I brought this up with him and we made an effort to take more time for each other with occasional father/son dates. We slowly grew our friendship, but I still felt a tinge of bitterness for time lost early on with my Dad.

That's when I started asking God what to do about the pain. I felt him say, "Take your hurts to me and let me Father you in those places. This is when I started calling God 'Dad' instead of Father. He wanted to fill that Daddy spot in my heart. As I called Him Dad, He felt more and more like my Papa Dad instead of just 'God'. When I took my pains to Him, asking what He thought about them, He'd wash me with His loving words, calling me son and showing me those hurts from His perspective. I saw my own Dad with more understanding of his history, with more sympathy and love. After a good long while of that I decided to let go of those hurts and not hold onto any bitterness towards him for them, but to take him as he was with gratefulness for what we have in the present, focusing on building the relationship I longed for instead of dwelling on the past.

I was letting the Great Father take His rightful place in my heart and letting my sweet earthly Dad become a friend along the road. I can't tell you what wonders its done for my relationships with both of them!

God Doesn't Make Commercials

Spirituality works differently than I always thought. We are so used to being begged to buy things right, left, and always that below the steady verbal flow of our conscious thoughts, we assume, God must work the same way. We picture him as the admen on Madison Avenue who wine and dine and puff and pitch till they work us into a wanting frenzy or we shove them out of our living room with the push of a button. But God does not make commercials. He’s not trying to sell you something. He doesn't send out mass emails. He won't clutter up your mailbox with piles of paper suited only for starting fires in your hearth. He’s not going to coerce you into closeness with Him.

The Great Father invites. He is inviting you into real life--into joy and friendship and intimacy with His pure-love self, and His people are the instruments of this invitation.

For most of my life I operated under the assumption that if God really wanted something to happen, then He would make it happen. If He wanted me to know something, He would make it so obviously apparent that I couldn’t miss it. I’m not sure where this perspective came from, this idea that I was just an observer whom things happened to. My disposition was, and in many ways still is, to think of life as a passive event and myself an ineffective agent within it. Maybe you can relate to this. I’m daily working to live the opposite of that--to be an active agent with my will. That’s what I am. It’s what we all are.

Several places Jesus uses an odd phrase usually translated, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.” I was puzzled by this saying for the longest time, not really understanding what he was trying to say. When I read it in Greek for the first time it made a lot more sense and served as a catalyst for me taking a more active approach to life--with God and in everything else. To explain it more fully I would translate this phrase as, “You have ears, they were made for hearing, so understand what I’m saying to you.” I always read this as “some people have ears who can hear what I’m saying, let those people hear and understand...the rest of you, well, better luck next time.” But that’s not at all what’s going on here. The latter part of this phrase is not a suggestion or idea. It’s not something he'd like a few people to do. It’s an imperative -- a command to all.

Jesus is inviting us, very loudly, to run after the treasures he has hidden for us to find. Walking with Him is like a kid on walking through the forest with his best friends on a treasure hunt. Just like the Proverb says: “It is the glory of God to hide a matter and the glory of kings to seek it out” (Prov. 25:2). There is a powerful distinction here: God doesn’t hide things from us, He hides things for us. You were made to uncover wonderful things throughout the adventure of your life. And through the process of discovering them we are made into kings and queens.

So look for Him, call to Him, seek His leading, His voice, His Word, His people, His truth, His reality, His Spirit to fill you up to the point of pouring out and spilling over. And don't stop after a few minutes, don't even stop after an hour, or a day, or months, or years. We’ve been trained by our inta-everything culture to have pleasantries beckon us towards them, but life is not meant to be a passive event. Go seek and knock and ask.  He is ever seeking to know and be known by you. There is ever more of Him to discover for those who will continually engage with Him in this mysterious thing called life.

A Dialogue with Dad: Learning to Listen in Prayer

As I've mentioned before, I believe an important part of prayer isn't just asking, or even thanking--it's listening. What might the Father be trying to tell you this afternoon? The other day I asked Him that question and was somewhat surprised with the answer! The following dialogue served to encourage me greatly, but the words He has for me are for you, too--and I hope you find encouragement in them as I did.

Bowing Your Knee

Eph. 3:14:

“Because of His gift, I bow my knee before the Father...”

As I walk through the week, I find my self worrying about what this or that person thinks. NPR or NBC, or some other combination of acronymial letters convinces me of what’s important that’s going on in the world and what should dominate my thoughts and feelings. I find my self constantly thinking about the news that flashes at me from my phone or computer screen. My ever-growing “to do list” constantly begs for my attention: at work, at home. I’m too distracted to notice that my whole life is hidden under the shadow of all these things I’ve deemed “important.” All these “important” things press me down. I’m supposed to filter through it all to find what’s worth my time and attention. But I’ve bowed my knee in too many places. What do I really know?

Our Heavenly Father is the only one we should ever bow a knee to, the only one to whom it’s appropriate to submit our whole selves. He knows all. He knows our hearts and futures, and dreams. He placed in us the beginnings of the great beings we are meant to become; much of which has yet to poke the beginnings of a sprout through our soil. When we bend the knee of our souls to Him we are empowered to do, dream, and become all that we were made for.

He is the One, the Mighty One, who loves and lifts up with His power. There is no other who can do what That One does. He is The One our hearts bow down to and in so doing, grow fully alive, fully their selves.

He is all. He is glorious. He is your Tender Loving Father who carries your best interest dear in His heart. Come near to Him. Receive His High-Father heart into yours and bow your whole self before Him. Take no other in that highest place that so many vie for every minute of every day. There you are His Beloved, child, daughter, son. There you are His low precious humble one. There He loves to lift you up to where you are seated with Him, in Heavenly places.

Up, Up, Away It Flew...

Up, up, away it flew,

    Her blue balloon of reddish hue.

For she let go, and in stead grew,

    A fresh young sprout, now well past due.

Crisp, country air let fly,

    Her spindling wisp, chasing off the dry.

Refreshment spurred an un-called sigh,

    Forgiveness found her how and why.

Let loose the bitter thoughts you hold.

     Release the past, set free the old.

Pray good for them, there you'll find gold.

     Come breathe the country air,

You'll see.

On Fear

        

        Do you think Kate is mad at me? She sounded so irritated with everything I said!

        No, she just gets like that sometimes. She's probably just had a shitty day or something.

        I don't know, she hates it when I bring up ______.

        Everything in the world thrives when it takes root in its proper place and all things grow into tyrants when they live where they were never meant to take a single breath. Fear is no exception. For the longest time I couldn't understand this. I only knew fear in the context of spiders, sharks, and scary movies. Fear was the unlit side of a dark schoolhouse, the shadows you hide from and scurry through. But then I saw fear in a place so odd it knocked all my preconceptions on their heads.

        "The fear of The Lord is the beginning of wisdom." (Prov. 9:10)

        The first time I read this I pursed my lips, wrinkled my forehead, and pondered the thing 'til I had to move on, with only more confusion to show for my efforts. I would hear "the fear of The Lord" preached from the pulpit but not know what to do with it. I knew Jesus was loving; was God the Father of the Old Testament someone you wouldn't want to upset because you might piss Him off? Is that what this 'fear The Lord' thing was all about? That doesn't seem like my good God. For years I had no idea what to make of it.

        But I kept coming back to the idea that everything has its proper place. A son who has no respect for his mom or dad becomes the tyrant of a home. A daughter who cares only for pleasing her self quickly grows into quite an uncomely creature. We are the children of God. To grow up well, we need to fear displeasing Him. He has the right perspective on everything in life. He was, before time began. He spoke time and every universe into life. We see but a few short decades through our tiny scope of experience. He perceives all time through every perspective. His desires are the ones to be afraid of walking against. His delights shine fullest joy into the essence of everything they touch. Pleasing Him is the most beautiful object our minds could ever focus on. That sounds strange to our current culture's ears, I know, but remember how he's made us. His joy is to bring us joy, to raise all that exists to its complete maturity, and make us creatures capable of reigning over creation with Him, below Him, to serve and uplift all that is and is not yet.

        Fear with any object other than God only ever leads deathward. When we fear peoples’ thoughts and opinions we get caught up in a furious tornado that tosses us around until we are so disoriented we don't know which way's North. But when we are blown by the Wind of God, His Holy Spirit, we are floated to fresh lands, rich and nourishing. Fear of anything but God is a shackle that keeps us tied to failure. Jesus comes to set us free, free to fear one thing: walking our day without God's voice and presence, alone. It is here that we are free to run into our true identity in Him. It is here that we find life, here that we grow into adults who know light from dark, death from life, nourishment from slow poison. And it is here that we are free to live fully alive. Don't get me wrong, fear is not our focus, not a major player in our thought lives and days. What I'm describing is the only place fear can fill the purpose it was made for. It was not made for us to stress about what our friends think of us, or obsess about whether we’ll succeed in our career, or even necessarily to tremble in the face of danger. Fear has only one good place.

        I see you now Fear. You hold the wide boundary, the border between Love and Death. You are the darkness outside the light that keeps me looking bright full into the radiant face of Love. Keep your place, come not in me. I will fix my eyes on the one who loves--what's more, the one who is LOVE, who defines love, the only one who fully knows all that word contains. I will live in Love. Fear, know your place. Keep your border well.

The Hello Prayer

   

    The easiest prayer, most simple to say, is the single word, "Hello."

     Prayer so often sounds like an arduous hurdle we must skillfully leap over to reach a feeling of peace and closeness with God. My list of tasks piles up so high most days that connecting with God just sounds like another chore I must accomplish somewhere along the way. My soul gets overwhelmed as my mind races through all that needs to be done until I remember,

     “Oh! Hello!”

     He’s already here with me. There's no special incantation to chant, seven times, in just the right order, to get God's attention. No. He is here all the time. He is ever present, ever near, ever waiting for me to be present with Him. I can be, if I simply say,

     “Hello.”

     My mind gets cluttered with the countless tasks of the day, and the many days ahead. So much to do, so much I should be doing that I'm not. But I say Hello, I turn to Him mentally and spiritually with that word, and He reminds me,

     "Wait. Don't worry. Just focus on the tasks I assign you today. Still your soul's racing pace. I am here. I will walk with you through every task. Don't let your own thoughts carry you off without me. I will carry you in my arms, Peace and Joy, through every place you need to go."

     Hope stirs in my soul. Ah, He's right here. I can start with praying continually. I can talk to Him. I can listen to Him no matter what’s going on around me. I can access Him any time I want, if I simply say,

     “Hello.”

Come Meet Me

Come meet me in the morning.

Refresh me like dew.

Let your Whispers, rustle my spirit.

Draw me into your Heart,

Up to your Face,

Down to your Feet,

Where my Soul finds its pace.

Feet me along, The Great Little Path

You Walked + Ran + Blazed.

Fly me up, your Heavenly Road,

Where all Know, and Sing Your praise.

Float me along,

Your deep river Joy,

Till I Burst, + Bubble;

Past my seams.

My trust in Your Hand,

Head on Your Chest,

No worry, can break-in my mind.

I have + I'll hold,

You for my Gold,

Every day, every all, of my Time.

A Balanced View

       As Christians, we believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Thanks to the innovative creativity of Tertullian, we call this beautiful paradox the ‘Trinity’ (he invented this word in Latin to help people think and talk about this idea). The difficulty of understanding the way Scripture describes this reality of one God in three persons has been the source of great confusion throughout the Church’s life, not to mention the lives of many individuals. 

        I won’t try to explain here how our Heavenly Father is unified with, yet distinct from the Son and Spirit--that is a massive undertaking which I have no intention of taking under presently. I want to look here at how we act towards the triune God in our everyday lives. 

        A Theology professor of mine once said, “Though we say we believe in one God in three persons, we usually treat him like he is only one and not three or only three and not one.” I’ve noticed something similar in most Church gatherings. Usually, a church focuses prominently on one person of the trinity, while the other two sit hidden in the background nearly forgotten. I grew up in the mainstream protestant side of the Church, where Jesus was the central focus. The Father took a back seat, and Holy Spirit was so far back He was barely holding on to the emergency exit door of the bus as He flailed out the back. Most of the songs, teachings and answers in my Sunday gathering were about Jesus. Many Christians know that the ‘Sunday-school’ answer to every question, no matter what, is ‘Jesus.’

        This may not sound like a bad thing, Jesus being the grand focus and all. But everything has a place and a measure it functions in best. When it is out of its place or experienced in a measure other than its best, there is something lacking in our experience, even if we don’t recognize it. For example, an action or idea may not be wrong because of being vile or wicked, it may be wrong simply because it pushes another thing out of its proper place and causes imbalance in your or another person’s life. If we focus solely on Jesus, we miss out on who He was always emphasizing: His Father. Or we might even be neglecting the very one He sent to us, the one He implored us to look to after He was gone: The Holy Spirit.

        Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection was wholly for the purpose of connecting us, through adoption, with The Great Father. The means by which Jesus did and still does this is through the Holy Spirit and living continually in the Holy Spirit. This is what we were made for. It’s exactly what Jesus worked for and preached His whole life on earth: life as children of the Father in, by, and through His Holy Spirit.

        My point is certainly not that we need to value Jesus less. My point is we need to value the Spirit and the Father more. Or, perhaps it’s the other way around for you. Who in the Godhead do you talk with the most in prayer? With whom do you most often relate? Who do you connect with the least out of the Trinity?

        Are you relating to the Father as His son, or daughter?

        Are you living as a highly valued child of God?

        Are you being led into all truth and empowered to do great things by his Holy Spirit?

        Do you recognize and respond to the Spirit’s voice throughout the day?

        Are relating to your rescuer, brother, and King; Jesus?

        Who do you know the most deeply, and who might you be neglecting?

        Though it’s most simple to focus just on Jesus or the Father, or the Spirit, we mature most fully as we grow in our relationships with all three members of the Trinity. Practice addressing each person in the Godhead individually. Ask The Spirit to show you what is lacking and what is off balance for you here. Ask him to give you a balanced and more full view of life with Him.

Belief vs. Trust

Belief is a word often used in today’s culture--especially Christian culture. It makes sense, as it’s used so often in the Bible. However, when thinking about what the word “belief” actually means, I struggle to find justice in the way it is used most often, especially "Believers" of Jesus. Today when people say they ‘believe’ something, they usually mean ‘to think certain thoughts in their heads.’ That’s what believing in something means, right? You believe it accurately reflects reality; it’s true. But the Greek word translated as ‘belief’, πιστός, means a good deal more. It connotes leaning on the thing which you believe. Trusting it is truth, to the extent that you act in accordance with it being true. Like a man standing, legs crossed, his forearm bracing his weight against a stone wall. He believes the stone wall is there and then acts like it is.

It’s like the difference between believing your friend is a responsible driver and actually handing him your keys so he can borrow your car for the weekend while you’re out of town. Your belief is expressed in trust when you hand those keys over with confidence in your friend. The active handing-over-of-your-keys kind of trust is the biblical word most often translated as belief or faith.

Trust is the expression of a belief that has made its way down from the head to the heart. Not coincidentally, this happens to be where meaningful relationship also resides. This is the space where the God of Heaven desires to live, and to thereby experientially know you and be known by you. For we are meant to live intimately with our God (Micah 6:8, Gen. 5:22, Gen. 3:8, Matt. 7:23). The way we do that is by trusting in him.

When you believe in God, you don't merely receive him into your mind, but through your mind down to your heart where your spirit learns to mingle with his. The only way anything gets to the most significant places in us is by the act of trusting. Often times we let ideas sit in the cooking pot of our mind till they’re burned. Ideas are like soup in that regard, we add in different perspectives from varying sides of fences and put it through testing heat. Eventually, when the flavors have simmered together into a delicious curry it needs to be eaten. That’s the only way it offers sustenance. Otherwise it will eventually just turn to an unappetizing burnt glob of gunk that Fido will even turn his nose up at! No one wants that to be the stuff in their head. Stepping out in trust (faith) is what builds in us meaningful connections with people, God, and truth.

Let’s eat our words, eat the ideas we profess and ponder and let them nourish our lives and those of the people around us. Maybe that’s a helpful measure for deciding what to mentally consume--how nourishing it will be to our selves and the selves around us.