What we believe about what God is like and how He views us determines almost everything in our lives– our attitudes, interactions, values, purpose, identity, worth, faith, and hope.
Foundational Truth
2 most important aspects of our lives:
I often teach that the 2 most important questions/beliefs we have:
HOW DO YOU SEE GOD?
HOW DOES GOD SEE YOU?
These 2 questions determine almost everything else in your life.
HOW YOU SEE GOD.
“I want God as He is, not how I want Him to be.” C S Lewis. We need to see God as He is, as He revealed Himself in Jesus, not in myth, superstition, sentimentality, our own limited human projections.
Think for a moment. How you understand God’s character, His beauty, His compassion manifested in Jesus— this determines EVERTHING about your faith.
Is He a God to trust, to seek, to be DRAWN TO
OR
a Entity to avoid, that we just try to keep in happy and hope He doesn’t cause me trouble?
Most of us, if we believe Jesus’ words, “if you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father,” can read the gospels and get an accurate sense of God’s compassion and grace as it is lived out in Jesus’ life.
I try to encourage people to consider the tone of voice Jesus must have had. His tone must have been reassuring, encouraging, affirming. Consider how comfortable the woman at the well must have been that she didn’t take off running when an obvious foreigner knew everything about her life! Jesus seemed to always take any spark of curiosity and fan it into a flame of faith. I think part of this is that his voice was one of sincere concern, a tone of grace.
Maybe this is connected to what Paul instructs: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person,” Colossians 4:6. Jesus was certainly the embodiment of that command.
We need to hear Jesus’ instructions in that tone that draws us to know more and obey.
My greatest need is to SEE GOD as He is not as we want Him to be.
We need to ponder, study, be amazed
by Who God Is and
What He Has Done.
This the essence of
WORSHIP & THANKSGIVING.
HOW GOD SEES YOU.
If we respond to His calling, He sees us as having passed from death to life (John 5:24), as having the right to become children of God (John 1:12).
By faith, in Christ, we are chosen; His handiwork; beloved; adopted; a new creation; given a seat in the heavenly realms; citizens of heaven.
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” 1 John 3:1
“We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10, NIV)
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” (2 Cor 5:17, ESV)
“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:9, NIV)
“For I hold you by your right hand—
I, the Lord your God.
And I say to you,
Don’t be afraid. I am here to help you.
I am the Lord, your Redeemer.
I am the Holy One.” From Isaiah 41:13-14 (NLT)
We have a fallen selfish nature. The cure for that is not in trying to be better, it will not be found in reformation, education, better standards, etc.
The cure for our fallen nature is
To SEE GOD AS HE IS
AND
TO SEE OURSELVES AS GOD SEES US THROUGH CHRIST’S SACRIFICE.
Each day we also need to ponder How God Sees Us!
If we could see ourselves as God does, we would be radically transformed in almost every way possible.
My identity, significance, purpose, security, value, future, and my primary relationship—all of this is found in what God declares to be true.
He declares we have a right to be a child of God.
He declares that we are beloved.
He declares that we are forgiven and redeemed.
He declares that we called by name to be a new creation.
WHEN WE SEE OURSELVES AND OTHERS MORE AND MORE AS GOD SEES US… WE WILL BE TRANSFORMED!
So …. “In face of all this, what is there left to say? If God is for us, who can be against us? He that did not hesitate to spare his own Son but gave him up for us all—can we not trust such a God to give us, with him, everything else that we can need?” Romans 8:31 (JBPhillips)
May God, the source of hope, fill you with all joy and peace by means of your faith in Him, so that your hope will continue to grow by the power of the Holy Spirit. Rom 15:13 (GNT)