Identity
I enjoy watching a new television show called "Identity." Contestants must match a group of persons with their individual identities (butcher, baker, etc.). While watching the other night, I wondered...What if JESUS were standing there? Would anyone recognize Him? Oh, I guess most people would go for the guy that looked the most like the Shroud of Turin stereotype. But then again, we do tend to try to make GOD out to be in our own image.
That's probably why the world is in such a mess. We each try to mold GOD into what we want Him to be (if we're homosexual, He must be "the GOD of Love" exclusively and not judgmental, so we don't feel guilty; if we are female and want power, He must be...wait, She must be, either female or neuter or at least not like this misogynist sounding Bible. As those feminists who fashioned "Sophia" are noted to have said "We don't need a bleeding male God", or something to that effect.) Or we imagine gods we can control or who won't cramp our style, like Buddha. Or we use our own guilt and shame to bludgeon ourselves with fearsome gods who are too high and holy to sacrifice for us but we must always strive to appease, like Allah or the millions of Hindu gods and goddesses.
But who would we not pick out on that stage? He would not be very attractive, that we would take note of Him; a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief. And like one from whom humanity hides their eyes, He would be despised and rejected. (Isaiah 53:1-3). In other words, we would never pick JESUS out of the crowd.
The irony is that He offers us His identity. That is why He came to earth as a human being (as well as God), to identify Himself with us by accepting our frailties and faults as His own to overcome all their implications and results, and to identify us with Himself, His purity and blamelessness. He came to exchange identities with us, guiltlessness for guilt, "Shalom" (peace) for shame. And He says for nothing more than the belief that He has done all of this on our behalf by His sinless life, death and resurrection, we will some day beyond days "see Him as He is, for we shall be like Him" (1 John 3:2).
A Believer in JESUS CHRIST, a child of GOD...Is that your identity?
That's probably why the world is in such a mess. We each try to mold GOD into what we want Him to be (if we're homosexual, He must be "the GOD of Love" exclusively and not judgmental, so we don't feel guilty; if we are female and want power, He must be...wait, She must be, either female or neuter or at least not like this misogynist sounding Bible. As those feminists who fashioned "Sophia" are noted to have said "We don't need a bleeding male God", or something to that effect.) Or we imagine gods we can control or who won't cramp our style, like Buddha. Or we use our own guilt and shame to bludgeon ourselves with fearsome gods who are too high and holy to sacrifice for us but we must always strive to appease, like Allah or the millions of Hindu gods and goddesses.
But who would we not pick out on that stage? He would not be very attractive, that we would take note of Him; a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief. And like one from whom humanity hides their eyes, He would be despised and rejected. (Isaiah 53:1-3). In other words, we would never pick JESUS out of the crowd.
The irony is that He offers us His identity. That is why He came to earth as a human being (as well as God), to identify Himself with us by accepting our frailties and faults as His own to overcome all their implications and results, and to identify us with Himself, His purity and blamelessness. He came to exchange identities with us, guiltlessness for guilt, "Shalom" (peace) for shame. And He says for nothing more than the belief that He has done all of this on our behalf by His sinless life, death and resurrection, we will some day beyond days "see Him as He is, for we shall be like Him" (1 John 3:2).
A Believer in JESUS CHRIST, a child of GOD...Is that your identity?
Labels: Identity
posted by Ariel Lion of God | 4:19 PM
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