The Good Of The Father (The False Narrative)

 

With Christ have I been crucified, yet I am living; no longer I, but living in me is Christ.  Now that which I am now living in the flesh, I am living in faith that is of the Son of God, Who loves me, and gives Himself up for me 

Paul to the Galatians 2: 20, Concordant New Testament 

Throughout my life, many people have tried to define who it is that I am.  Liar, cheater, fat, lazy, I've heard them all.  I admit that there have been times when my own confidence has been shaken by how those around me see me.  However, I also have come to realize that these people are not looking deep enough to know who it is that I really am.  For many years even I did not see the truth of who it is that I am.  I simply believed what others told me.  But one day, after a conversation with a dear friend on the reality of Christ Jesus in us, I began to think.  How is it that God sees me?  Who is it that God says that I am?  After all, this is what matters in the end, right?  Would a Father who loved me enough to create me in His likeness proclaim me anything less than special?  Indeed, this is how Father God sees me.  When He looks upon me, He sees His Son {Paul to the Galatians 2:20}.  When I stand before Him, I stand as His child {First Epistle of John 3:1}.  This is who I truly am!  This is the identity that I have in My Father Who created me.  The world may try to tell me who they think that I am, but they're mistaken.  For how the world sees me and how my loving Father see me are totally different.  The world will look upon that flesh vessel which houses my true spirit identity and judge me by its appearance.  Understand that the vessel which houses my spirit identity has also been created by God.  Know also that the flesh which I have I also have shared with Christ Jesus who is in me.  Did they not judge Jesus by His flesh appearance as well?  But any Christian worth their salt knows all too well that Jesus was much more than his flesh which contained His spirit.  So it is with us.  While it would be wonderful if the world would see me for who it is that I truly am, that's not how things work.  The apostle John speaks to the truth that the world does not know the truth of who we really are because they do not know the Father {First Epistle of John 3:1}.  

Perceive what manner of love the Father has given us, that we may be called children of God!  And we are!  Therefore the world does not know us, for it did not know Him. 

First Epistle of John 3: 1, Concordant New Testament 

The other day a good friend sent out an email requesting prayers for one of our brothers for confidence.  I recalled how many times that I have prayed to the Father for that very thing.  The confidence to overcome who the world claims that I am.  The confidence to know in my heart how the Father sees me through His own eyes.  THIS is what matters most.  For what good is it to have all the popularity in the world and yet not have God?  How many times have we witnessed in the mainstream media the downfall of one who they had previously made popular?  Let me be clear, popularity is temporary, our identity in the Father is eternal.  He is a part of who it is that we are.  This is why I refer to how the world views me as the false narrative, it isn't who I truly am.  Who I am is a child of the living God.  My thoughts are with my friend who struggles with the confidence of who he is because I've been where he is too many times.  I've struggled with ways to make myself more appealing to those around me.  This is a fools errand, and I am nothing like a fool.  My prayer for my brother is that the Father would open his eyes to how it is that He sees him.  As His loved child.  God hears what the world says about him and scoffs!  "They do not know My child!"  Indeed, the world will not know my friend because they have not known the Father in Whose likeness he was created.  For if they had known the Father, they would also know His creation as well.  The false narrative and lies of the accuser will try to convince us that we are someone we have never been.  It is the Father within us Who assures us of who we truly are in His eyes. 

According as He chooses us in Him before the disruption of the world, we to be holy and flawless in His sight, in love designating us beforehand for the place of a son for Him through Christ Jesus, in accord with the delight of His will. 

Paul to the Ephesians 1: 4-5, Concordant New Testament 

~Scott~ 

The Good Of The Father (Through His Eyes)

 

For the God Who says that, out of darkness light shall be shining, is He Who shines in our hearts, with a view to the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ 

Paul to the Corinthians (2) 4: 6, Concordant New Testament 

Prayer is always a hot topic in most churches.  We either pray too much, or not enough.  Can one even pray too much?  Has the scripture not encouraged us to "Be praying unintermittingly" {Paul to the Thessalonians 5:17}?  Indeed, prayer is a vital part of our life in the Father.  Prayer is that intimate conversation which we have with Him every moment of every day.  Jesus Himself would often retreat into solitude for His own time of conversation with the Father.  Jesus, of course, knew the importance of His own conversations with the Father.  These were not simply fireside chats, but intimate conversations where He poured out His heart to God.  So it is for us as well.  I was thinking this week of a new understanding of my own prayers to the Father.  I pray about many different things every day, so it's important that I have a good understanding of just what prayer is, and can be.  First, what is it that we see as answered prayer?  Does God simply materialize things out of nowhere in order for us to see that our prayers have been answered?  Or, as I have begun to believe, does the Father often open our eyes to what it is that He desires us to see?  Indeed, the opening of our eyes has been mentioned many times in scripture.  Adam and Eve had their own eyes opened after taking the forbidden fruit {Genesis 3:7}.  Up until that point, everything was fine.  When their eyes were opened, they saw things they had previously been blind to.  What is it that you are praying for today?  The author Norman Grubb has mentioned that our prayers are but invitations from the Father Whom we live in union with {Johns Account 14:20}.    The other day a good friend requested prayer for one of our brothers.  I believe that the Father will answer our prayers by revealing to our brother what it is that He wants him to see.  For a short time, I questioned God as to why He would ignore my prayers and not heal my mother from her sickness.  It wasn't until after she passed that my eyes were opened and I began to see that He had indeed answered those prayers.  My mother was no longer hurting.  

In the beginning was the word, and the word was toward God, and God was the word.  This was in the beginning toward God.  All came into being through it, and apart from it not even one thing came into being which has come into being.  In it was life, and the life was the light of men and the light is appearing in the darkness, and the darkness grasped it not 

Johns Account 1: 1-5, Concordant New Testament 

Recently, a good friend mentioned that the Father would reveal to me the woman He has chosen in His time.  Of course, this has been a prayer of mine for some time.  In that day, my eyes will be opened to what it is that the Father wants me to see.  In the book of John, we see that Jesus (The Light) has appeared in the darkness (The world we live in) but that the darkness has grasped it not {Johns Account 1:5}.  Indeed, there are many whose eyes have yet to be opened to who Jesus is.  I was once a "Knower" of Jesus, one who knew of Jesus but didn't know Him on an intimate level as I do today.  My eyes had yet to be opened.  Of course, this was due to the teachings and theology of the mainstream church that I was involved in for so many years.  Yet in all of those years in the church, my eyes were never opened to the truth of Christ Jesus in me.  What was God waiting for?  It wasn't until I had left the church and began to join in conversations about Jesus with a dear friend that my eyes were finally opened to the REAL Jesus in me.  There are people who speak of their own personal "Come to Jesus" moments in their lives.  Those moments where the Father opens their eyes to what it is that He desires them to see.  My own came on a hike with a friend who described the Father as being present in all of His creation.  It was at this point that the Father opened my eyes to the truth of Christ in me.  This was my own "Come to Jesus" moment.  Of course, there have been other things that the Father has opened my eyes to see, such as the folly of partaking in the earthly pleasures of strip clubs.  One night, God opened my eyes to this truth as I stood outside one of these establishments.  What He opened my eyes to was the truth of who I really was in Him.  I wasn't that guy who frequented these places.  That wasn't really me.  Yet it took the Father opening my eyes to the truth of who I was to get me to see the folly of my actions.  I know that the prayers of my late mother were answered by the Father that night.  So, what is it that the Father wants you to see?  

~Scott~ 

The Good Of The Father (The One)

 

In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and I in you and you in Me 

Johns Account 14: 20, Concordant New Testament  

The Jewish authorities questioning Jesus were in a frenzy.  They had long sought to find a way to discredit Him, and now they finally believed that they could use His own words against Him.  'I and the Father, We are one {Johns Account 10:30}?  Jesus on the same plain as God?  What blasphemy was this?  These Jews immediately picked up stones to throw at Jesus for His obvious blasphemy.  What man could compare himself to God?  Surely this man was of the accuser, right?  Wrong!  For to know Jesus at all is to know that His words are true, He and the Father are indeed one.  Not only that, Jesus has also proclaimed that we also live in union with He and the Father {Johns Account 14:20}.  This is not, nor has it ever been, blasphemy.  The apostle Paul has spoken to the truth of Christ Jesus in us {Paul to the Galatians 2:20}.  The scriptures have spoken to the fact that we indeed share a intimate connection with Jesus and the Father.  Of course, this is not something which I learned through the traditional mainstream church.  For the institutional church theology has always been that mankind has somehow been separated from He who created them.  We do not dispute the fact that it is God who created us in His very likeness {Genesis 1:27}.  We also more or less agree that it is God who has breathed into us the breath of life, thereby creating man as a "living soul" {Genesis 2:7}.  The mainstream church will embrace these truths as the creation story, yet they scoff at the idea of a life in union with the Father.  For many in the church, including myself at one time, it was taught that man ran afoul of God in the garden.  Because of his sin against God, man seemed destined to be separated from his creator.  But this was simply the lie spoken by Satan the accuser.  Like the Jews of Jesus' day waiting for the opportunity to trip up Jesus in His own words, the accuser also waited for his own opportunity to drive a wedge between the Father and His creation.  What followed was Satan convincing Adam and Eve that were they to eat of the fruit which God had commanded them not to, that they themselves would become "Like God" and know good from evil {Genesis 3: 1-6}.  This is the lie of the accuser, and the moment which the church hangs its hat on pointing to our own separation from God.  

"I and the Father, we are one" 

Johns Account 10: 30, Concordant New Testament 

I have a friend who has somehow began to think of himself as "Disowned" from his family due to his lack of communication from them.  This, of course, has left him with many hurt feelings over the years.  As I've gotten into deeper conversations with him, I have started to introduce him to the truth of our union life in the Father.  This truth of our union in God also translates into our own earthly families as well.  Our own heritage and DNA testify to the fact of where we come from.  To say that someone is disowned from their family is to ignore basic science.  Genealogy testifies to the truth of who we are.  Neither human pride nor angry words can take away from the fact that each of us is identified from birth with certain markers which trace us back to our roots.  This is indisputable.  In this same way, we are linked through our creation to the Father.  There is NO possible way, despite the teachings of the mainstream church, that man will ever be separated from our creator.  God is in our DNA.  He is intertwined in who we are not only as a physical being, but in our spirit identity as well.  When Paul spoke to Christ in him, he was speaking to his one true identity in Jesus.  For it is not flesh and blood that defines who we are, but the spirit of He in Whom we live {First Epistle of John 4:13}.  Our one true identity is not our link to the genealogy of our family tree, but to the Father in Whom we live.  The Jewish authorities demanded that Jesus provide them with proof of who He was, and He did.  

~Scott~