

# Acknowledgments

I would like to first thank my family and friends for all their continual support and faith in me. I want to thank my roommates for sharing their lives with me during this time and encouraging me and praying for me; Zach, Evan, Denzel, and Nick, you all have been a tremendous blessing to me. Mom, I want to thank you for praying for me and singing over me in the womb before I was even brought into this world. You have been such a huge encouragement to me all these years and cheered me on and I treasure all the long conversations we have had and will continue to have. Dad, I want to thank you for honoring me in my pursuit of my life journey, never judging me or stopping me, but continuing to support me. I want to thank my Lifepoint Church family. You have been the rock of my life and helped me out more ways than I can even remember. Richard and Darlene, thank you for pouring your lives into mine and sharing your home, your resources, your time, and most of all, your hearts with me. Lastly, Thank you Abba for being my wonderful, gracious, unchanging Daddy who accepts me and who always will as His beloved Son in whom You greatly delight. Thank you Jesus Christ, the Lover of my soul. No words can adequately express and do justice regarding your overwhelmingly great love for myself and for all of mankind. Holy Spirit, I thank you for being my best friend, leading me and guiding me, instructing me and comforting my heart. Your Presence is better than life.
Preface

This book took was at least 5 years in the making, if not written on paper, then written on the tablet of my heart. Some of the concepts were introduced to me as early as 2011. It dramatically changed my life and was quite evident to everyone around me. Other similar ideas came later to give me more understanding and depth. I was pregnant with the idea itself with writing a book since at least a year ago. However, the actual fruit needed, well, pruning. Within the last month or so, these "cornerstones" have become much more solid in my heart. As a result, my identity rooted in the righteousness of God in Christ and the finished work of Christ has taken on a whole new level of fruit including but not limited to freedom from fear of man, valuing myself more than I have ever before, constant satisfaction in Christ and Him alone, faith and rest in the simple goodness of God, and an indefatigable hope to go after my dreams that God has called me to fulfill. This is only the beginning. It only gets better and better. This is the book I was born to write. This is my life message, my life song, my heartbeat and the reason why I get up in the morning every day. This is the Gospel of Grace and Glory. Have your fill, oh lovers! Drink deep Beloved of His intoxicating love for you!

Love never fails,

Daniel Welsh

Table of Contents

Relationship vs. Religion 5

 Saying No to Self -Esteem & Saying Yes to God's Esteem of You 7

Twisting the Gospel Message 9

All in the Family 12

From Orphan to Family 15

Jesus Christ as Our Vicarious Man 17

Reflection on Righteousness 24

Value & Shame 28

God Redefined Your Value 28

The Pearl in the Field 31

Location, Location, Location! 33

God Don't Live in Junk 34

What Does "Lost" Really Mean? 37

The "Lost" Parables 40

Overcoming Shame 42

A Vision of Christ Forgiving Me 44

Reflection on Value 45

Lack & Peace 50

Lack and Lust 50

As The Garden of Eden Turns 52

Whole and Complete 54

Testimony Time 56

The Lessons I Learned (more than once!) 58

Reflection on Peace 60

Beauty & Freedom 65

Beauty and Perfection 65

Unrequited Love for All 70

 The King is Captivated by Your Beauty 72

Expression and Identity 77

Redefining Freedom 80

Reflection on Freedom 83

Conclusion & Summary 86

About the Author 91

##  Relationship vs. Religion

I believe one of the greatest crises in today's generation has to do less with trying to twist people's arms into changing their morals and behaviors, and more with recognizing their God given sense of personal value and identity which should bring about natural transformation and godly change from the inside out. Unfortunately, we are experiencing a shortage of value not just in the American dollar, but in the universal human heart!

One of the big reasons I believe for this is due to the universal lie of equating our performance with our personal value and identity. If you don't measure up, if you're not cool enough, not funny enough, not sexy enough, then you are just a screw up, a failure, a worthless piece of....well, you get the picture. This type of performance based judgment lens is part of a much bigger problem that I like to refer to as "religion." The system of religion accuses you, condemns you, and then controls you with the fear of punishment. It constantly feels like a noose around your neck reminding you of how much you miss the mark at life, suck as an individual, and keeps you in a never ending cycle of striving, failure, guilt, and shame. It is the impossible carrot always dangling in front of you, but always out of reach, promising you the winning "lottery ticket" to the life you always dreamed of if only you would work harder, do better, pray longer, etc. Alas, it is impersonal, powerless, and futile, devoid of love, peace, hope, and lasting joy. Rules and standards of perfection can't love you back. They can't embrace you. They can't believe in you. They can't tell you who you really are.

On the other hand, The God who is the Father of your soul who created the heavens and the earth actually does. He cares more about you, His son or daughter and wholeheartedly rejoices in the beautiful image and likeness He originally created you in. He does believe in you. He really does love you and He is the only one who can tell you who you really are. He didn't just create your beginning. He wanted you from the beginning.

This is not just another book about the dry religion of Christianity, some angry God up in the sky or a good moral teacher named Jesus. I am not here to debate religion, science, morals, laws, or tell you how you should live your life. Too many people may have already tried that and most likely, it didn't do a whole lot for you. Personally, I have completely given up on trying to change people's behaviors, but I will never, ever give up on loving people.

Why? Simply because Love never fails. Love is a Person, Jesus Christ and His Love for you is everlasting.

This book is meant for people who have lost sight of their true value, their true significance, and their beautiful identity in God's eyes. This book is for those who look in the mirror and really don't like what they see. I'm not just talking about the outside; I'm talking about the inside, how you really feel about yourself. This book is for those who struggle with pleasing others or are driven by performance to try to be the best they can, look the sexiest, and be the richest, but at the end of the day still feel completely unworthy, hopeless, and unsatisfied inside. This book is for those who may be interested in God but don't give a flip about church or religion.

You know what? You don't even have to believe in God! Just dare to be loved! That's the challenge I give you. I'm not even asking for you to try to believe. I am just asking for you to allow yourself to be loved!

It is more important what God believes about you than what you believe about Him. You can be an atheist, not sure what you believe, or even believe in Scientology for all I care. If you are human and you just want to feel loved and encouraged, then this is a great place to start. Come inside the Father's House where it's warm and cozy and you can be yourself and take your shoes off and stay as long as you want. God is not in a hurry. Take your mind off your past, your worries, and prepare your heart to look in the beautiful face of pure, unconditional Love that sees past all that junk and has never stopped seeing in you the limitless depths of beauty, glory, and purity. You are the pearl of great price that His heart can't stop thinking about day and night. Begin to imagine this kind of love. Take a drink in your heart of His Love and don't ever stop drinking. Trust me, I haven't. I don't ever intend to stop. Ever.

##  Saying No to _Self_ -Esteem & Saying Yes to God's Esteem of You

How much you think of yourself is kind of a big deal, right? Low self-esteem these days causes a lot of problems. One of the reasons I wanted to write this book is because I believe that one of the main root causes of addiction, whether its drugs, sex, food, money or anything, has to do with how very little we value ourselves. In fact, I have never met any drug addicts who had a very healthy self-image of themselves. When we believe we're a piece of junk we look to other things to try to polish up the mess that we believe we are on the inside. Then like a fix we look to other things or even people to constantly tell us that we are valuable, worthy, and something real special, even though we believe in our hearts that we're really not. The fix starts with trying to numb that emptiness in our heart and for that split second we forget. Woo hoo! That false sense of peace and comfort baits us in, hook, line, and sinker. Zing! That feels so good! I gotta have more of that! Give me more! Alas, the desire is never really truly fulfilled and the wound never truly healed. The emptiness is still there even after the feeling comes and goes like a vapor in the wind.

Bottom line, it's really more of a self-judgment problem, not a drug problem! I'm not trying to get you to stop your addiction. I am trying to get you to finally start loving yourself!

I believe everybody has this built in desire to be valued and recognized. Children do crazy things to get attention. Adult men and women do the same thing, maybe just in different ways. The desire is there. The need is ever present.

I know this all sounds pretty heavy, but it is pretty important. Bear with me here. My goofy and wacky sense of humor should hopefully make this a little more palatable to read and you may even find yourself enjoying it. Well, one can always hope anyways, lol. Oh, by the way I will definitely repeat myself at times, so it's best that you go ahead and just get over it. I will definitely repeat myself, so it is best that you go ahead and just get over it. Having second thoughts about reading this book, huh? I don't blame you. I'll blame the crazy, yet quite handsome guy who wrote it.

The other reason I wanted to write about this subject at length is because this used to be a constant struggle in my life. I will cover this more in other chapters, but because of all the "horrible" things I did in my life (we are our own worst critics), I could not look in the mirror and truly love myself. I didn't like myself. Disappointment, shame, guilt, and condemnation sucked the life and joy right out of me. In my mind, I failed the standard so miserably that God really loving me was more of inside joke to laugh at, even though I went to church and acted normal on the outside as best I could. Simply put, my behavior, judged as the very worst in my mind at that, determined my value, my worth, and how little I mattered to myself, to my family, most of all, to God.

But I bring good news! This is one of many amazing truths that will help liberate you as it did me!

Your behavior does not equal your value before God!!!

If you are a super goody two shoes and give to the poor all over the world like Mother Teresa, it doesn't make God like you any more. If you just went to prison for 1st degree murder or have so far pretty much wasted your life away on yourself, guess what?! It does not make God like you any less. It does not change the fact that you are of such indescribable worth to Him! You are amazing to God! He still thinks so highly of you! Let this simple truth about how much God likes you and values in spite of your good or bad works really sink in.

Just to get this party started on the inside of your heart, repeat this out loud:

God thinks I am totally amazing. My performance, whether good or bad, does not determine His love for me. He still likes me and always will!

If I don't compare my value to my behavior, then how do I measure my value? By what standard do I compare it to? Great question! I'm so glad you asked. Would you like to find out? (If you didn't, just play along...simply nod your head and say yes.)

You have permission to stop esteeming yourself according to what you did or did not do. Your value has everything to do with God and how He sees His son Jesus Christ. In fact, He related to you the same way as His own son Jesus. This is what the Gospel is really all about.

Say what?!

The Gospel & Righteousness

##

##

##  Twisting the Gospel Message

I believe everything in our lives is affected by our understanding of the Gospel, so it should be no surprise that I am talking about it right off the bat.

Be warned. What I am about to say here may very well be offensive, challenging, or fly in the face of everything you may have been taught growing up in church. Get mad, get glad, but please don't stay sad. Without further ado, here we go...

Most people think that Jesus sacrificing His life on the cross was to save us (mankind) from I will bluntly say as God dishing out a holy can of white hot wrath for all of mankind's sin and destruction. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice to appease a bloodthirsty God who needed the ultimate sacrifice to make up for our sin. Basically, God (the Godfather, let's be honest) was bent on blowing us to a million pieces and was definitely going to, at least until Jesus finally stepped in and took His Father's cosmic bullets that were intended for us. He was our shield from the Father's onslaught of angry wrath that had to be released in order to justly punish our sin.

"God is love, but God is just. God loves you, but...your sin had to be punished." That was the typical Sunday school answer I got growing up.

So God was morally obligated to judge our sin and so Jesus was the one who got punished. Jesus was punished for our sin instead of us! Jesus took our beating for our sin instead of us! Hallelujah! Thank you God for not beating me like you did Jesus...

Wait, what???

Thank you Jesus for saving me, but God, according to that logic...was it required to torture me like your son Jesus...crucify me...beat me...and slowly suffocate me to death on a cross??? So are we making God out to be some sort of serial killer who had lots of motive, premeditated the gruesome murder of mankind for all of eternity, but then took it out on His own son Jesus...whom He supposedly loves a lot as His only begotten Son?

Um...about that...you do know that the word almost doesn't make God sound any better, right? In this light if God is almost a serial killer who was obligated to kill us, then, well, he basically is. Let's be honest. Try landing that one on a first date:

"I love you so much Claire. By the way, I almost murdered someone that did something really bad. I almost did, but don't worry I murdered an innocent man instead. Actually, it was my own son. So, anyways...could I come over to your place tonight? I want to show you just how much I love you.

Check please!

Even if it was God's plan all along to murder His Son Jesus for our sin that still is pretty messed up. Is that the kind of God you want to snuggle up next to like a natural father and trust to heal your broken heart? Like the Incredible Hulk, you better not make Him angry or you're really going to get it!!!

I know I am being a bit tongue and cheek, but I hope you get the point I am trying to make. The image that we paint of God in this light is directly at odds with a good Father that loves us and who is Perfect love incarnate in the Person of Jesus Christ.

Do you see how messed up we have made this Gospel message? Not only do you see how much of a psychotic murderer we have made out God to be, but the point I want to bring out here in all this is:

What about us? What kind of message does that send about mankind? What does that say about our value and our identity before God? Does God see us as just an object of depravity, worthy of punishment, and just a "no good dirty, rotten worthless sinner" He felt legally obligated to forgive and die for? Most of all, would you please tell me how in the freakin' world this type of Gospel message is supposed to work practically in our lives to bring healing, love, joy and transformation to people's hearts?!

For the sake of covering the intended purpose of this book being strictly about identity and value, I will not sufficiently explain why I believe the doctrine of penal substitution is not only incorrect, but quite harmful and ineffective to bring about the healing and transformative grace that God intended. Other people have extensively written about it in other works. I am simply here to offer another point of view of the Gospel that I hope will help bring about the healing, freedom, and love you may have been looking for and that I eagerly sought after especially when my teenage years came to a head on collision of pain and faith. The traditional Gospel that I had been taught did not give me the foundation to prepare me for those emotionally tumultuous years nor did it provide the healing when I needed it the most.

Are you ready to hear the real story now? The real Good News?

Here we go...

## All in the Family

At its heart, the Gospel is really about family and identity.

Family and identity: Where did I come from? And Who am I?

Every child asks in his heart at some point in his or her life this question: Who do I belong to? Where did I come from?

The second question is closely connected to the first. Certainly every teenager asks this question and receives many different answers depending on their culture, values, and family beliefs. The question is simply this:

Where did I come from?

The most critical question for this generation I believe.

Let's address the first question, shall we?

God clearly answered this question when He first created mankind.

"Let us make mankind after our own image, according to our likeness."

If God created you, then you came from Him and belong to Him. The "us" in the above verse refers to God as plural, meaning more than one. I believe it refers to God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit who act like a family in the perfect exchange of relational love and trust.

You were created out of this Heavenly family to share in and enjoy the love that they have for one another. The Trinity or the Triune Godhead existed before Adam, before the fall of man, before sin, before death entered into the world and affected all of creation. The amazing truth that should make you jump with joy on the inside and outside is this:

You were created to be loved by the family of God! You're not orphaned! You're not a bastard child!

You were wanted by the family of God! Not rejected or a mistake!

Just let that sink in a bit. How many messages have you received in your lifetime whether it is from your peers, media, from your own parents, from your friends, and even from yourself that have told you otherwise? That you are rejected? Abandoned? A mistake? That you don't belong?

Why did you believe the negativity? And how did those negative messages shape your life and your self-image, do you think?

Would you like to have a new thought pattern and think about this way that God sees you instead? Nobody has the power to change your thinking except you. You have the power. You always have, even though you might have forgotten you did along the way.

The 2nd question: Who am I?

The family of God created you after their own image and likeness. Notice the word their. Not mankind's image, not Adam's, not your parents, not the image the media would like to portray you as or celebrities tell you that you should be. You are not created after the image of what any of them look like, but God's.

What does that really mean though?

Well, think about it as if you were physically being born from your parents. You came from the DNA of your mom and dad, right? So their physical and genetic traits are like yours; hair color, eye color, skin color, personality traits, etc.

I know God may not have physical traits per se, but what about characteristics of His nature, of His Person?

Just for a quick example, let's consider the fruits of the Holy Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control. So connecting these two ideas, if we are created after the image of God and God is like these things, then when you ask yourself the question Who am I?

Some of your answers would be:

I am Love. I am Joy. I am Peace. I am Patience. I am Kindness. I am Goodness. I am Faithfulness. I am Gentleness. I am Self-Control.

Think about this for a second. Deep down inside I believe you want to believe this about yourself to be true. Don't you want to believe that this is really your true nature and your true identity and who you really want to be?

You are not just someone who acts in love, but someone who is a loving person. You are not just someone who acts sometimes with patience, but someone who is a patient person.

The truth is that you belong to the family of God and as being His son or daughter you are free to enjoy His Goodness, His Love, and all the benefits of that relationship that go with it. So how does Jesus fit into all of this? What does the Gospel have to do with my value before God and my identity?

Great Question!

Let's find out, shall we?

## From Orphan to Family

Jesus has everything to do with your belonging to the family of God. The short version of it goes like this:

God didn't just want to forgive man one time. God didn't just want man to relate to Him through a list of do's and don'ts. God wanted man to relate to Him and experience the same level of belonging as each member of the Trinity does within one another, the Father, the Son Jesus, and Holy Spirit. So how do you do something like that? How does one experience such union not as a separate person, but participating vicariously through each member to share in their fellowship, their love, and their joy?

Let me give you an example.

Imagine you have been raised as an orphan your whole life and then suddenly adopted into one's family from the outside. You would feel honored, but deep down inside you would wonder what it would really feel like to be like the other son who has been in the family all along. That son knows what it is to be loved his whole life, to be accepted, to belong, to be provided for, to freely enjoy what his parents have bought for him, etc. However, as someone who just got adopted into the family though, you have quite a different history, don't you? That was not your past experience at all! You don't know what it is to be unconditionally loved, taken care of, and free from lack or danger or harm.

So then, let me ask you this:

What if you could live through that other older son's feelings, experiences, and memories and experience them as if they were your very own?! What if you could truly experience and have the same level of affection, security, love, peace, and joy that the other son has experienced his whole life even though your past experience was that you did not grow up in that family and even though those are not your biological parents? Wouldn't that be so amazing? Wouldn't that not just make you adopted on the outside, but actually make you feel adopted on the inside, regardless of your past, your negative experiences and all the feelings and memories associated with it? Does that sound too good to be true?

This is why Jesus came. Jesus Christ was that other son. Yes, Jesus is Lord and Christ, but most people overlook the fact that He is still your Elder Brother too, made of flesh of blood just like you. Just like you always were predestined to belong to the family of God, Jesus was always predestined to be the oldest son, or as Scripture refers to it, the firstborn. He is the firstborn of all creation. Contrary to popular belief, Adam is not the firstborn of all creation. Jesus Christ is. Mankind's ultimate hope was never in Adam to begin with. You were related to Jesus by birthright before Adam ever came along and you were still included even after mankind messed it all up. Jesus simply came as your older brother to not just set your free from the law driven system that keeps people believing they're just an orphan and the power of sin and death to keep you in slavery, but He once and for all established that His Abba, Father is yours; that His status as His beloved son is also yours. Within His own flesh, Jesus worked out His righteousness on your behalf and revealed your joint glorious status and shared inheritance as family again because He was, in fact, your Elder Brother all along and it was His duty of the family business to do so. My friend and fellow minister Jonathan Mitchell makes this point concerning Jesus as the firstborn of all creation in Colossians 1:15:

"...Not only was Christ 'the Exact Formed Likeness' of God, whom we do not see, but He is the Firstborn of all creation. This is an all-inclusive, universal statement...So here, Paul is reaching back to the creation story, associating Jesus with Adam as he does in Rom. 5:12-21 and 1 Cor. 15:45. But here, Christ is the end of that story (the last Adam) and the beginning of the next (the Second Human). But what does it mean to be the firstborn? The first one? Yes. The preeminent one? Yes. But in the Hebrew culture, to be a firstborn son meant something more; he was the one who had the duty and responsibility to assume authority over and responsibility for the rest of the family, if need be to be the kinsman redeemer. He was also next in line to receive the inheritance, when the father died. Being 'Firstborn of all creation/every creature,' means that He has the duty and responsibility to redeem the whole creation; to set free every creature [including all of mankind]. And this He will do [Jesus has both completed it and continues to reveal it through the Holy Spirit]. (bold original, brackets mine)

God's plan was to put you in union within His Son Jesus Christ so that you would totally set free from sin and death and all its effects in order to then experience what His family is really like with Christ, actually experiencing His Life with the Godhead through Christ Himself. Pretty amazing, isn't?

##  Jesus Christ as Our Vicarious Man

Let's go a step further, shall we? Take another deep breath because we're about to go a little deeper into Mr. Grace.

I want to emphasize the point that Jesus Christ was not just our moral example to follow. He didn't just go through what He did just so that we are still left trying to work out our own salvation hoping that we can one day live up to His impossible standard to follow. No, His reason for coming in flesh is a lot bigger than that.

Through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ both divinity and humanity were irrevocably woven together. God came in the flesh and made His dwelling not just among us, but in and within mankind. Jesus Christ wasn't just living as an example for you. Throughout His entire life He was working out righteousness as you. He is Righteousness. He is Reconciliation. It's not just what He does. It's who He is. Furthermore, Jonathan Mitchell makes this point in his New Testament Translation of the Bible. He provides other meanings, but the idea is still undeniably present and should be seriously considered regarding not just the atoning death of Jesus Christ, but equally His atoning life within all mankind:

John 1:14

And so The Word (the Idea; the Thought; the Reason; the Discourse; the Message; The Collected Expression of Rational Logic; The Logos; = the meaning, plan and rational purpose of the ordered universe)

births Itself flesh (or: became flesh; came to be [in] flesh; came into existence being flesh; = God's thought, the ground of all real existence, became projected into creation as an immanent power within the world of mankind, inhabiting flesh),

and lives in a tent, within us (or: set up a tent and tabernacled among us),

and we view (attentively gaze at; looked at so as to contemplate)

Its (or: His) glory (Its manifestation which calls forth praise; Its appearance which creates and effects opinions in regard to the whole of human experience; = His manifest presence): a glory (= prestige and importance; reputation and opinion-forming appearance)

as of an only-begotten one at a father's side (or: [the] glory from [the presence of the] Father, as a uniquely-born One),

full of grace and truth (filled with favor as well as reality and genuineness). (bold added)

This is why Jesus lived out our human existence, experienced our weaknesses and temptations, and did not sin. This is why Jesus came and freely laid down his life on the cross. It was the culmination of the defeat of sin and death not just potentially for humanity, but once and for all within humanity.

Please bear with me here. I know some can be a bit technical and wordy. All this may not seem to have to do a whole lot about how you see yourself in the mirror and how much you may not like yourself, but please understand that it absolutely does has everything to do with your self-image and identity. How your see yourself primarily starts with how God sees you, and God doesn't see you apart from Christ; He sees you in Christ, in union with and absolutely one with Jesus Christ Himself.

What if God decided to live within mankind in the Incarnated life of Jesus Christ and worked out salvation within His own body destroying all the effects of sin and ultimately defeating death that resulted in the one act of unrighteousness of Adam? What if what Jesus Christ did was actually enough for all of humanity and not just for a few select chosen ones?

There were others who thought along the same lines. This idea was not foreign to some of the early church fathers. Iraenaeus (130-202AD) got a hold of this:

For Irenaeus, then, **redemption was a process of** **restoring creation rather than one of escaping creation as in the Gnostics' soteriology**. It was a process of reversing the corruption that entered into creation through Adam's fall, and "the end of this process is man's entrance upon a life which is no longer subject to the limitations of generate existence... Irenaeus clearly envisioned salvation as transformation of humans into partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4). This idea of redemption—known to later church fathers as "divinization," or "deification" (theosis)—lies in the background of Irenaeus's vision of Christ's work as recapitulation. God's purpose and goal in redemption is to reverse the sin, corruption and death introduced into humanity by Adam and lift humanity up to life and immortality. **The incarnation accomplishes this as a possibility by fusing humanity with divinity.** Humans may be "divinized" by solidarity with Christ while remaining humans and not becoming God himself. The basic contours of this vision of salvation are assumed by most later church fathers [bold added].

It is also interesting to note too that Irenaeus did not see the redemptive work of Christ as an individual work, but as a corporate one affecting all of humanity as a whole. This idea apparently was introduced much later on:

During the Reformation of the sixteenth century, however, **most Protestant theologians rejected or neglected it** in favor of a more forensic (legal) and individualistic view of salvation as personal reconciliation with God [bold added].

Now isn't that interesting? That is quite a change some 1300 years later concerning church history. Hmmmm...

Through His life, death, and resurrection, Jesus Christ made Himself one with you so that you can now freely share in the type of relationship that He has been enjoying with His Father and Holy Spirit for all of eternity. You are His son or daughter in the family of God having already been adopted and born again through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. All of humanity was included in the saving work of Christ, just as all of humanity was included in the transgression of Adam in the Fall. Through Jesus Christ, you can now experience the love of Papa God, the peace and comfort of Holy Spirit, His healing power, His supernatural knowledge, His forgiveness, and so much more! You can freely experience these things because you have already been adopted through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ!

Here this may help. Below is a picture which helps illustrate this concept. Here is what I call the "Grace Model." For those visual learners out there, here is something that might help you understand.

This is what I just described. God reconciled all humanity culminating at the cross and transferred all of humanity within Jesus Christ Himself. We no longer are a third party, but passively grafted into this covenant relationship which we are caught in the middle of between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, freely sharing in their fellowship of life and love.

Now, take a look at the "Traditional Model" and notice the stark difference between the two:

There is still separation and distance. It still depends on us to remain in covenant with God. This covenant seems quite conditional. This is clearly not the new covenant that Jesus Christ fully ratified by his own death. Furthermore, God is always out there somewhere. Heaven is always out there somewhere. Salvation is always out there somewhere, instead of Mr. Salvation being closer to me than the air that I breathe.

I would like to give the floor to one of the great theologians, T.F. Torrance who elaborates on Jesus Christ as Mediator and Great High Priest fulfilling both sides, both as God and as man. This is probably a model that you have not heard before, so you might have to take some time to read over this section more than once. It can be very overwhelming at first. I understand. This rocked my world the first time I started reading about it. I know this may be quite challenging to everything you may have learned regarding righteousness and atonement. However, this could very well set you free from legalistic bondage, abandonment, lack, and God knows what else. It is truly liberating and settles you in His love in the deepest parts of your being.

The point is this: Christ wasn't just an example to follow; He was our priestly substitute from life to death, all the way through:

"We are to think of the whole life and activity of Jesus from the cradle to the grave constituting the vicarious human response to himself which God has freely and unconditionally provided for us...Jesus Christ is our human response to God. Thus we appear before God and are accepted by him as those who are inseparably united to Jesus Christ our Great High Priest in his eternal self-presentation to the Father (bold added)."

Jesus Christ merely didn't act for mankind as a "transaction"; He acted as mankind within His own being. He further goes on to refute why Jesus has to be more than just someone who externally represents us or externally is a substitute for our sin:

"...That is not an answer to God which he has given to use through some kind of transaction external to us or over our heads, as it were, but rather one which he has made to issue out of the depths of our human being and life as our own. Nor is it an answer in word only but in deed, not by way of an exemplary event which we may follow but which has no more than symbolical significance, but by way of a final answer to God actualized in the flesh and blood of our human existence and behavior and which remains eternally valid."

"...the humanity of Jesus and substitution are linked together...with the idea that it is as man that Jesus Christ takes our place, acts on our behalf and in our stead, and that it is precisely as man that God himself comes to us in the Incarnation. It is at this very point that the Gospel seems to hurt most, for it cuts like a two-edged sword into our preconceived ideas [bold added]."

What the heck does all this mean?

Simply put, Jesus Christ actually did complete the job of saving you, from start to finish!

You didn't do a thing! You independently didn't contribute anything to the relationship; Christ did it all singlehandedly! You merely share passively and "abide" in the exchange of love and life between the Father and Son through the revelation knowledge brought to you through Holy Spirit. Your "sinner's prayer to accept Jesus into your heart" experience of being born again did not put you in this covenant of righteousness with God in Christ. Your revelation of your already being included in His covenant caused you to finally experience it for yourself. I celebrate your born again experience and want everyone else to have it, but you were already His beloved son or daughter in Christ to begin with. The divine light bulb just went on inside of you! Hallelujah!

This is Good News!!! The truth is that He loves you the same way He loves Jesus because right now you are in union with Christ. This means you have permission from God to identify your relationship now as the same one Jesus has with the Father!!!

It is simply because of what Jesus Christ did. His righteousness is enough. Nothing else qualifies you. His Righteousness is what gives you access to share in complete relationship with God. In order to experience what Jesus experiences, it is through His righteousness alone. Your self-righteousness will only get in the way of limiting His Life from transforming your life.

To make a short story long (heh heh), this means that you can measure your value and your true identity as the same level of value in the same way Father God values His son Jesus and sees Him.

So let me ask you this then:

Does the Father look at Jesus like a piece of worthless junk? Of course not! So neither should you!

Does the Father look at Jesus guilty, condemned, and is ashamed to even look at Him? Of course not! Neither should you look at yourself the same way then!

To follow up from before with the fruit of the Spirit and your identity for example, you are now permitted to say this as true of yourself because Father God sees Jesus this way:

As Christ is, so am I. So...if Christ is love, then I am love. If Christ is joyful, then I am joyful...and so on and so forth.

This is who you really are. Your experience may not line up yet, but this is your true nature. Your true self was born again in time over 2000 years ago when Jesus Christ raised you up in Himself. He birthed you through His blood, the very DNA of God.

Let the truth of this really sink in. This truth is more real than your feelings. This is why it is important to change your thinking, or repent from the way the world thinks to the way that Father God sees you.

Unfortunately, over the course of our lives, we have heard the same negative messages about ourselves over and over again and judged our value and identity according to our actions. So, naturally it can be quite difficult at first to not only have a new thought, but to believe something that seems too good to be true simply because of God's grace with no effort required on our part. Grace is completely upside down from what the world tells us.

To help change your thought processes and allow the simplicity of this Gospel message to work in you from the inside out, I have written 4 different poetic reflections on key topics that I cover: Righteousness, Value, Peace, and Freedom.

These are lyrical pieces I wrote awhile ago and which I am currently working on to put in music form. I have listed a few scriptures on the side and space on the side to write down your personal thoughts as you ponder and listen to what the Holy Spirit says to you concerning your true identity in Christ. You can write whatever you want, but the point is to take time, chew on it and listen. These selected scriptures are designed to help renew your mind to the message of Christ in union with you. The only right form of Christian meditation, that is, lies in filling our mind with God's Word and with what our Heavenly Father God says about us. It is a lost art today in most church circles. So I encourage you to take the time and slowly read over the words, even say some of them out loud if you want. My prayer is that the revelation of God's love and Grace would powerfully touch your heart as you realize that your true identity in God's eyes is so much better than you could ever have imagined.

##  Reflection on Righteousness

Romans 5:8-19; Romans 6:3-11; 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

Have you thought to take the red pill

what you been taught may be ill

Christian-anity is still

More than your traditions

Something other than the "mission"

Not to make another religion

I won't apologize

For what you think is right

Can you drop your size of your Bible's height

God will mess with what you like

Not for pleasures sake or for His spite

But to let you know who you really are on the Inside

Going back to Christianity 101

The reason for God sending His Only Son

He neither needs sacrifices to please His lust

Nor is he too stingy to save only some

The cross was a sign of His perfect love

Recreating us from what mankind had done

Righteousness is the Person of eternal life

You just don't live on the earth, you now live In Him, that is Jesus Christ

Chorus

Holy cow

Did you see how

It went back

Before Adam

Ate that

Cuz God knew what Jesus would undo

Making us brand new

No more old man

Christ was always the plan

Now sin is done Cuz of the Son He really won

The new world has come

We now live in His Love

The world you used to live in

Completely died with Christ which ended sin

You are now living inside of Him

Hallelujah Amen

Hallelujah Amen

We have to understand this one thing

It was all about what Christ really did bring

The Gospel ain't about your sinning

The world was dead but now it's living

Christ undid Adam's history

Now Sin is dead because of His victory

Please Take a step back and

Close your eyes a bit

Imagine a new house in which

You have never lived

This house is so alive cuz sin does not exist

It feels like a home that is closer

Than your own skin

Then the letters in red on the door

Make total sense

The truth of your identity

Is thru the door of Mr. Righteousness

(say what say what)

The truth of your identity

Is through the door of Mr. Righteousness.

Righteousness is the quality of life

You've been placed in the Son whose name is Jesus Christ

The world was changed when we were raised Up with Him

Because He now lives within, who you are is Now not about your own sin

Jesus is closer than the air that you breathe

If you still don't believe, The Spirit's there to Help you to see

That He cleansed you, Hes forgiven you, crucified the old you, raised up the new you

Holy Spir-it now come let my friends know That they real-ly are one

In the death and resur-rection

Of Mr. Perfect Love.

Chorus

Holy cow

Did you see how

It went back

Before Adam

Ate that

Cuz God knew

What Jesus would undo

Making us brand new

No more old man

Christ was always the plan

Now sin is done

Cuz of the Son

He really won

The new world has come

We now live in His Love

The world you used to live in

Completely died with Christ which ended sin

you are now living inside of Him

Hallelujah Amen

Hallelujah Amen

Now Jesus Christ has come

So has His Kingdom

And There is no escape

You're Now Included in his Grace

It's too late. This is your state.

If you Don't appreciate?

Then that's ok.

Let me get this straight

Just look yourself in the face

And Tell me, are you His son or just a slave

Bottom line of who you are

Makes all the change

Of whether you are lost or really saved

Say what say what

Bottom line of who you are

Makes all the change

Of whether you are lost or really saved

Chorus

Holy cow

Did you see how

It went back

Before Adam

Ate that

Cuz God knew

What Jesus would undo

Making us brand new

No more old man

Christ was always the plan

Now sin is done

Cuz of the Son

He really won

The new world has come

We now live in His Love

The world you used to live in

Completely died with Christ which ended sin

And you are now living inside of Him

Hallelujah Amen

Hallelujah Amen

And you are now living inside of Him

Hallelujah Amen

Hallelujah Amen

Hallelujah Amen

 | Personal Notes

---|---

#  Value & Shame

##

##  God Redefined Your Value

Now considering this change of thinking, let's now evaluate what the cross says about mankind in this new light. When viewing Jesus being punished for my sin by God the Father I once thought that I was just a screw up loser and God had to clean up my mess because He had to love me. He had to send Jesus to punish me primarily because I was a sinner. I sinned, I messed up, I was separated from God, I, I, I, me, me, me. I did not stop to think that God may have seen things a bit differently from His eternal Perspective. God's plan of salvation was predestined before I ever screwed up in the first place. The Work of the cross and the Person of Jesus Christ was not God's afterfart. You read that right, my friend, after...fart. Mankind did not give God indigestion so bad that He farted and out came Jesus. Jesus Christ was, is, and always will be. The Father didn't suddenly have a revelation that went down like this:

"Well, Son, I wasn't planning on having you and making you flesh and blood to be among them and die on a cross, but unfortunately, this is what it's finally come down to. Oh shucks! This is my last resort. These people are really causing me high blood pressure, massive headaches, and irritable bowel syndrome. I just can't take it anymore. So will you give your old man some relief and take a beating because of all those terrible sinners down there that are just a royal pain in my...Oh Jesus, just bless their hearts. Yea, that'll show 'em to really fear and tremble before Me. Oh yea, Jesus, one last thing. I'm going to have to murder you too, on the cross for their sake, and just before I do, I'm going to leave you on the cross to die all by yourself. Trust me; it's going to hurt me a lot more than it does you. Oh wait, I won't be there, so never mind. Forget what I just said. Ok, Jesus. I love you. Get 'er done!"

The work of Jesus Christ was not God's afterthought because of our sin. It was the cosmic reinstitution of mankind as part of God's family which could then bring about our joint participation in His present Kingdom making heaven and earth one through union with Christ Himself.

Jesus Christ came to include all mankind, not denounce them. Jesus came to reveal God's beloved sons and daughters so as to include them as one of His own not reveal just some no good dirty rotten sinners and further exclude them from His good graces and everlasting love.

The powerful message of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross is that it reveals your priceless value!

The point of the Cross didn't reveal how worthless you are. Don't believe that for a second.

It was Heaven's triumphant shout to you saying how absolutely AMAZING you are to Him! It's is God universal declaration that you are reconciled, you are forgiven, you are made righteous, and that you are accepted into His family as His beloved Son or daughter as revealed through your co-inclusion in Jesus Christ. This event changed everything for all mankind everywhere, once and for all. The Kingdom of Heaven had been revealed through the person of Jesus Christ and had culminated to this one point in history, the death and resurrection of Christ which radically changed your identity and the world as we once used to perceive it now and forever.

He declared it throughout the world and throughout all of Heaven once and for all by the seal in blood ledgered in the bold and fine print of His Son Jesus Christ. To disown you, would be disown Himself and disown His own Son Jesus. He took the greatest risk and continues to take the greatest risk every day for you whether you choose to believe His Love for you or not. This news is not meant to condemn you; this news should make you jump with joy when you think about how much He has given Himself and all of His Love to you. You are worth it! You are blessed and highly favored and prized above anything else that money can buy! You have the greatest and single handedly most expensive treasure already available to you: His intimate and total love and life that He has fully entrusted to you.

This really smart dude once said:

"An infinite God can give all of Himself to each of His children. He does not distribute Himself that each may have a part, but to each one He gives all of Himself as fully as if there were no others."

-A.W. Tozer

From His perspective, you are the most singlehandedly expensive treasure that He proved once and for all and will continue to do so. From your perspective you might wonder why Jesus wanted to lose everything and experience the world, and the worst side of humanity. What would motivate Him to have such a tremendous loss? From God's perspective, you're not experiencing this covenant relationship through His son Jesus was the much greater loss. He is perfect Love. Love's greatest desire is not for control or fear or material gain. It is always, always about union.

Love simply says, "I want to be with you." Period. No conditions. No takebacks. No do-overs.

He wanted you to experience what family within the Godhead really feels like. You were the ultimate prize, the ultimate joy, and the superior gain in the end that He could not do without. He prizes and values you so much that any loss, any sacrifice, any evil or pain endured, would be ultimately worth it in the end to have you by His side, and enjoying face to face relationship just like with His son Jesus.

## The Pearl in the Field

I want you look at this passage in the Bible from this perspective that I just explained.

The Parable of the Hidden Treasure

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."

The Parable of the Pearl of Great Value

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it."

It is clear from the passage that the trespassers and the merchant found something worth so much that they did whatever they could to get it. No sacrifice was too big to get their hands on it. That is the same way that God feels about you!

I want to continue to hammer home this point. God was the one that emptied Himself of everything He had to declare to the whole world that you are His treasure and His flawless pearl. We were already His from before the foundation of the world, but we believed the lie that said that we did not belong to Him anymore, that we were too unworthy and too bad to be called His beloved sons and daughters. We made ourselves out to be enemies of God and so separated ourselves from Him. Again, the redemptive work of Jesus Christ was not heaven's cosmic bribe to pay off the Godfather to be on His good graces again. It was to reveal that all of mankind and even all of the cosmos are united in Christ to intimately share in that divine life and glory within the Godhead and the arrival of His Kingdom upon the earth. It is all the revelation of our union in Christ.

If the people in the parables represent God, then God is the one that determines your value! He determined your value by what He sacrificed to purchase the treasure: you. If God has everything already and nothing is singlehandedly worth more than God economically speaking, then His laying down of His life most certainly expresses your value as priceless. There is actually no price, no amount of money, nothing at all equal to your God given value because God defined it through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus. No one else can determine your value. You can't even put a limit on how valuable you are because you can't put a limit on God. It would be like a quarter trying to determine its own value. It cannot. It didn't create itself, so how could it compare its value to a dollar or a dime? God redefined your value through what He sacrificed to prove it to you once and for all.

The God, who has everything, needs nothing, desperately and passionately wanted you so bad to experience His Love that He endured the very worst of mankind's evil to be united to you so that in your heart you would totally see and know how once and for all that God has given all of Himself to you. No takebacks. Everything He has He has freely given you to enjoy through this union with Him through Jesus. He wanted to have an unconditional covenant with you in which it did not have to depend on your faithfulness, but His own, not your sacrifices, but His own. His pledge of unrelenting commitment to you is summed up in one word: Jesus. His unwavering faithfulness to you comes down to one word: Jesus. His constant and unconditional Goodness for you, to you, and in you, all boils down to one Person with His Faith, and His works: Jesus Christ. It's all Him from beginning to end.

##  Location, Location, Location!

Expanding on the topic of value, it would be foolish of me not to bring up how important you are to God and the priceless value He has for you simply because of the fact that God in His extreme goodness just up and decided to make His permanent home and personal place of residence inside YOU!

Every real estate and salesman knows that when a piece of property is close to something that is very popular and attractive, the price of the property goes way up. That is why beach houses, hotels and other places get to so be expensive, because they are sometimes within walking distance to the most popular or famous place in the country. Location, Location, Location! It's all about location, my friends.

If something is of more value simply because of its location to something famous in the natural, then what does that say about your value being the exact location of God Himself who takes up residence within you? You are the most expensive hotel in the whole universe! Furthermore, it made God extremely happy to make His home in you. It gives Him great joy, indeed.

##  God Don't Live in Junk

Perhaps you are not aware, but there have been many temples built to house the Presence of God that are recorded in the Bible. Just to make a point and not beat a dead horse, we will look at just two examples: The Tabernacle of Moses and King Solomon's Temple.

The Tabernacle of Moses was basically a fully decked out, 5 star hotel-esque mobile home for the Presence of God to dwell while the Israelites journeying through the wilderness to get the Promised Land of Canaan. Here is the skinny on how much gold and silver was used to assemble the Tabernacle and the overwhelmingly high cost involved. This is not including other precious metals, linens, materials, and the labor involved, which is a huge underestimate. Nonetheless, take note:

**The materials assembled for the tabernacle are described in detail in Exodus 35-38 and summarized in Exodus 38:21-30. The total quantity of gold collected was approximately one ton; of silver, 3-3/4 tons; and of bronze, 2-1/2 tons. At today's prices gold is approximately $500 per troy ounce, or $6000 per pound, or $12,000,000 per ton. Silver currently is priced around $12 per troy ounce, or $144 per pound, which is $288,000 per ton. Hence, the gold and silver used in the Tabernacle of Moses would be** **worth over $13 million today** **. Exodus 12:35 states that the Jews were given gold, silver, and ornaments by the Egyptians at the time of the departure from Egypt. The golden lampstand in the tabernacle weighed a talent and would today be worth a half million dollars for its gold alone.**  (bold added)

This is a very rough underestimate, but you get the picture. God doesn't just settle to live anywhere. He's got taste, very fine taste indeed.

It gets even more ridiculously costly when we start looking at King Solomon's Temple. This guy had the whole world and all the money therein. Check out these stats:

**These materials included 100,000 talents of gold and 1,000,000 talents of silver, (I Chron. 29). From his own private fortune David also gave 3,000 talents of gold and 7,000 talents of high grade silver. This is an enormous quantity of gold and silver by any standard: 100,000 talents of gold = 3750 tons, value today = $45 billion; 1,000,000 talents of silver = 37,500 tons, value today = $10.8 billion. In round numbers, the wealth of the first temple was about** **$56 billion** **.**

**This doesn't even include the other materials that used and the labor involved. To say King Solomon was wealthy is a gross understatement. Gold was like mere pennies to him.**

**In addition to all the gold and silver, great quantities of bronze, cedar, iron, and precious stones were contributed. The most holy place of Solomon's temple was lined with cedar from Lebanon and covered with 600 talents of gold. This gold plating alone, about 540,000 troy ounces, would be worth about** **$270 million today** **. The doors of the temple were also covered with gold plates. During this period of Israel's history, Solomon's income was 666 talents of gold per annum or about 600,000 troy ounces, worth $300 million today. The temple of Solomon required 7-1/2 years to construct and the efforts of about 180,000 laborers, (I Kings 7:13, 5:6, 13, 14; II Chronicles 2:17-18).** 22

Again as you can see, God doesn't exactly live in a piece of junk, completely far from it. So to go back to the original point then, what does all this say about your value to God being His permanent residence in which He now lives? What does that say about Jesus who is God Himself living in human flesh and blood? Starting to get the picture now of how valuable you are to God simply because He has chosen to make you His permanent dwelling place?

God could've chosen to call His home anywhere, you know. Jesus could've stayed in Heaven forever away from all the mess of human life, but He didn't. Jesus Christ has always been fully divine, but has also been dwelling within the flesh of humanity. God has always dwelled in flesh and blood. Just let that sink in a bit. Furthermore, God deciding to live in man was never an afterthought of sin either. It was God's beautiful and glorious view of us that made Him want to always live within mankind. It was always His plan to make His home in you, to be closer to you than the air that you breathe. The hidden Mystery that was foreshadowed through the prophets of old has now been revealed through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is simply this:

Jesus Christ is within you, the very habitation of the glorious presence of the Godhead walking and talking on the earth today! Your days of searching outside yourself and working to get closer to God are over! He has made you one with God your heavenly Daddy, the Son, and Holy Spirit! You are His beautiful temple

This is the good news of the Gospel! This has already happened! That's what it makes it news. It must've already happened. You are so valuable and precious to God simply because He always wanted to live in you. There is no distance between you and God! You have been made one through the Person of Christ. Start enjoying this union with the Godhead! This beautiful union with Christ requires no effort of your own.

##  What Does "Lost" Really Mean?

When Jesus is criticized for hanging out with the prostitutes, the drug dealers, and the murderers of His day, He tells them these stories or parables to tell them how valuable these so called "sinners" are to God.

I want to redefine what "lost" means for you. It does not mean being a wretched sinner, damned to hell, or a totally depraved person who is always bent on evil and someone who is separated from God.

People have made the label "sinner" to mean someone whose nature, identity, and being is the worst person in the world bent on total destruction and mayhem. That's called the doctrine of total depravity, go look it up if you want to really feel sick to your stomach. It's just an endless cycle that will make you feel worse and worse about yourself and all of mankind, kind of a like trying to regurgitate vomit. It doesn't nourish you or help you. Doctors don't recommend it for good reason.

Have you ever heard people in the church say phrases like, "Oh, that person is lost. They're just a lost sinner. Oh, they're definitely not a Christian?" The word "non-Christian" isn't even in the Bible, do you know that? Do you ever wonder why people in the church first meet someone and one of the first questions church people seem to ask or say to each other is, are they a Christian? Like that should matter!!! God is the Father of us all! Let's quit making divisions and labels that only seem to separate us from being in a Holy Roller religion club!

Repulsive and disgusted attitudes like this are really just saying "Yea, they're just an inferior second class person and might as well be the devil himself. Even God needs prayer just thinking about them. Shoot, He probably needs all the angels just to convince Him again every day that He shouldn't blast that person to hell right at the moment."

Ok, I am being a little facetious, but I often times think when people say things like that, their view of that person is inferior, unworthy, and think this person is bent on destroying their lives and everyone else's like some psychotic serial killer. Often times there's this huge unwarranted fear around this person claimed to be the "lost sinner."

"Now don't get too close. Don't hang around them too much. You have to be careful, now. Keep your distance. What they have will get on you."

I'm all for having positive influences in your life to build you up, but please don't call being afraid of people "discernment." There is no love in fear. Fear is the opposite of love.

If this has unfortunately happened to you personally, I want to apologize for all the people who have treated you this way, who had this fearful, condemning, and judgmental look at you just because they saw you as a "lost sinner." This is not representative of God and not at all what Jesus would do. Jesus had no problems hanging out with anybody. He was more concerned with loving people and more "afraid" of His Love for people getting on them than whatever was going on with them affecting Him. All in all, it is really just ego driven judgment and fear masking very impotent Christians with no self-control who have no faith in God's love and the power of the Gospel that Jesus actually walked in. I sincerely apologize and hope that you know that Jesus is nothing at all like these types of people. They know Jesus and His love a lot less than they think if they act this way around you.

Now that I've told you what lost is not, let me now tell you what I believe lost is...

Breaking News! This just in!

We interrupt this dry, boring book to bring you this important message sponsored by your local traditional church:

"You are a lost sinner doomed to being burned in hell! You have been separated from God because of your sin so you need Jesus Christ! Confess your sins and repent right now! Believe in Jesus, son and you will be saved, but if you don't you will spend eternity in hell!"

Now we return you back to your regular scheduled program...

Does that make you want to be saved now?

Didn't that make you want to turn your life and follow Jesus now? Sure enough, that's what I was taught growing up in church.

I am not trying to just make fun of Christianity just for the sake of it, though I admit it can be awfully hard to resist not doing so at times. I hope you understand I am showing you how this traditional approach is not God centered, but us centered, not love centered, but fear centered, not life centered, but hell centered. Furthermore, and this is the main point I want to bring out here is that this presentation of the Gospel completely hinges on the idea that our sin separates us from God. If that single idea of our sin separating us from God is dismantled, then well, the whole structure comes crashing down.

Guess what?

That's exactly what Jesus came and did. He flipped the whole thing on its head and came to reveal the loving Abba, Father who is intimate with us, especially in the midst of the worst of our sin. Jesus Christ showed us the exact image of the Father who hangs out with prostitutes, tax collectors, drug dealers, murderers, adulterers, and lepers. It's all through the Gospels. He breaks bread with them and relates to them as He would on the same status of intimate belonging as family. Either Jesus was fully God or not. Either Jesus fully revealed the Father or He wasn't God at all.

Theological newsflash!

Sin doesn't separate you from God. Beliefs from an unrenewed mind that leads to sin makes you think you're separated from God. It was all about the Father, like in the Prodigal Son story, re-affirming and doing everything within His power to prove to His kids that we were and still are part of His family and nothing could ever separate us from Him. God didn't send Jesus because God needed to prove Himself to Himself. No, God sent Jesus to demonstrate His true image and likeness to us, that He has always been the Faithful Father and that we were and have always been His kids, dearly loved, accepted, and blessed in union with Him beyond measure.

To make a quick point, I will say this: Sin hurts you, hurts others, and damages the relationship between you and God, but it does not provide this impenetrable chasm between you and God. Others might turn their back on you and forsake you, but it is just not in God's perfect loving nature to do so.

"For He has said, I will never (under any circumstances) desert you (nor give you up nor leave you without support, nor will I in any degree leave you helpless), nor will I forsake or let you down or relax My hold on you (assuredly not) "

We all belong to the Father as His sons and daughters. We are all family, whether we believe we belong to Him or not.

Let's now look at the parables of the "lost" in a little bit different light, shall we?

##  The "Lost" Parables

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them."

So he told them this parable: "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

The Parable of the Lost Coin

"Or what woman, having ten silver coins,[a] if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

The Parable of the Prodigal Son

And he said, "There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.' And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

"But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants." And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.' And they began to celebrate.

"Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.' But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, 'Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!' And he said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.'"

The lost sheep still belonged to the shepherd. The lost coin still belonged to the woman. The lost son still belonged to the father. The sheep was not enjoying the full benefit of the shepherd and the rest of the fold. The lost coin was still as valuable and was owned by the woman, but it could not be used to its maximum potential and benefit until it was put back in the care of the woman. The lost son was not enjoying the full benefit of His identity and inheritance as a son until he believed he was a son just like His father had always known in his heart the whole time.

Let's quit calling people according to the way that they act and start calling them according to their true identity in God's eyes, that they are dearly loved sons and daughters who belong in the same family of God as everyone else. Hey, they may not act like it, but that doesn't mean that God disowns them and kicks them out of His House. He is still their son; she is still His daughter, no matter what. When people start believing they are separated from God then they will start acting like they're somebody other than their good Daddy in Heaven whose image they're created after.

## Overcoming Shame

Shame does not discriminate. It doesn't matter who you are, where you been, and where you from. It is universal. In order to really know that you are valuable and amazing in God's eyes, you have to kick out this ugly thing called shame in your life. Until you deal with this, you will continue to struggle on the inside with your self-esteem, value, and will continue to feel out of place and like you don't belong. Let's get right down to it and talk about what shame really is:

Shame says that the bad and unforgivable thing that you did is who you really are. That dirty, evil, terrible thing you did or even didn't do is your identity. Shame replaces God's beautiful and amazing identity of how He sees you with something terrible that you have a hard time forgiving yourself for. Shame says I am disgusting, dirty, and deserve to be looked down upon because of this or that. I think you get the picture.

I am sure that you can think of many things that you are ashamed of. They may be big or small, but it doesn't matter, because in your own eyes we have esteemed it as the thing that puts this huge stain on you causing God to cover His eyes from you because He is so ashamed and disappointed in you.

I have talked to so many people and tried to share with them about the truth that God loves them and sees them as amazing, of priceless value, and brags on them to the angels. Sadly, they look away or look down and deny it immediately. Pardon my French, but that is really just shame rearing its ugly head in your mind and making you feel like a piece of s#*t on the inside. Shame says, "No, you can't really love me because of what I did." Shame is the wall that we've created in our hearts to not be able to really let the love of God awaken in our hearts and fully experience from the inside out.

I have even been there myself, many times. First of all, I want to repeat that it doesn't matter to God in terms of how little or big it is considering what you did or even if something shameful happened to you. Personally in my mind at one time in my life, what I did I thought was horrible, was unforgivable, something I felt so ashamed of before God. I clearly remember how even my mom told me privately how she noticed that everybody would complement me and say all these good things about me, but I could not receive them as being true about myself. I was my worst judge. That was not how God judged me, however. It was all in my vain imaginations. I made God to be something other than He was and I was destroying myself for it. That is how sin starts. Deception that undermines the goodness of God always leads to destruction to ourselves and eventually others.

You are not this dirty, hideous stain in union with sin that God is ashamed and disappointed of. You are His beautiful, glorious, and completely good image in union with Jesus Christ that God is so ecstatically proud of

How did I get out it? How did I get free? God's love crashed in on me and He showed me the truth about how He really felt about me, and I was never the same again. What did He show me?

I had a vision of God smiling at me with the biggest smile I could imagine. I instantly knew that He was not disappointed in me and ashamed; He was rejoicing over me and so proud of me! He did not see all those things in the past and thought I was never good enough in His eyes. No, He forgot those things and did not bring them up to accuse me. I could feel such joy that He had over me. All those walls that I kept in my heart from His Love finally came crashing down one after another. His Love and Joy kept flowing over and over again as tears and more tears kept coming. I hated myself for what I had done. But God's love was stronger than any self-rejection or shame that I had against myself. His Love never fails.

One of the things we have to come to grips I believe is forgiving ourselves. If we do not decide to forgive ourselves and really believe that Jesus was enough to take care of all of our junk then we are really letting pride stop us from receiving God's love and grace into our lives that is the very power to radically change us and heal us from the inside out.

##  A Vision of Christ Forgiving Me

Here is a vision that the Lord showed me a long time ago when I was struggling with shame and unforgiveness. He showed me His Love and spoke to my heart in such a powerful way that I will never forget. As you read this, I hope that you will let the precious tender words of Jesus do the same for you as it did for me. Receive His love and His Forgiveness for yourself. Don't let shame remain in you another day of your life. Embrace the truth that God is not ashamed of you or disappointed in you! He only has love and joy for you.

I couldn't stand to look into His eyes. I could hardly even lift my head, but before I knew it, His arms embraced me, my head gently resting in His bosom. Tears filled my eyes. I wanted to say something, anything. I had a feeling however, that He understood me. He understood my deepest struggles, the darkest depths of my soul, and the ever present feeling of shame. He didn't have to say a word. His presence was enough for me. That was all I needed, to be in His arms, weeping uncontrollably, shaking even. Time stood at a standstill. Seconds turned into minutes and minutes turned into hours. After the tears stopped flowing, I attempted to croak out an apology: "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." I felt His words more than I heard them. "It's okay. You've been forgiven."

His right index finger ever so gently raised my chin upward. I noticed the mark in his wrist where the nail should have been. Before the words were even on my tongue, He spoke my thoughts aloud. "I did it for you." I broke out into another torrent of tears. "What about the things I've done...How could you love me...still?" I barely croaked out. His right thumb brushed away some of the tears streaking down my left cheek. "I never stopped loving you...nor did I ever stop thinking about you". Both His hands were now cupped under my chin, as if I was the whole world He was gazing at for the first time. "Even though you did not see me when you were in your mother's womb, I was there. My hand was guiding you and her down to every minute detail of the process. And then when you were born...Oh! I wish you could have seen the great big smile on my face. Daniel, you are so beautiful, you know that?"

I would like to end this topic on value and shame with these lyrics I wrote about a year ago. It is a bit long, but I believe it summarizes everything I have said so well. Even though I might make reference to masculinity, the overall theme of value still applies to both genders. I pray that any shame would be broken off your life and you would come into a greater revelation of your exceedingly great worth as God's beloved son or daughter.

##  Reflection on Value

Luke 15:1-32

Every time I doubt myself

Remember this I must

His Love embraced me through my junk

Love calling my name when I think I suck

I just ain't trying to impress a girl

God likes me more than all the world

I'm not settling, but shooting for the someone Of my dreams

Cuz Only kings know to marry queens

Jesus isn't looking down to his bride

They're equally yoked at His side

Any other place would insult His pride

Cuz You don't find intimacy outside

Only playas take advantage for their personal Lives

But Christ showed your value through His Humble sacrifice

Any lower price is just a lie

The value of something is judged by its Owner's price

So when Jesus who is God in the flesh

Laid down his life for the ultimate test

It wouldn't make any sense if you were just Like all the rest

So remember his Yes is the ultimate proof to Prove that you are His best

It's proven you are His best

What's the problem with yo self esteem

A low score on yo masculinity

If you think it's what you do that makes u right

You forgot to check yo heart at the price is Right

You ain't supposed to be bidding low

The Spirit sees a lot more than what you think You know

The fire of His love burns your greatest coals

Into the glory of His diamonds and gold

You know God's biggest wage

Was the cross in Christ's divine embrace

It's neither what you say

Nor what you do that makes any change

His Love makes you feel indescribably great

You're free to love others, you don't have to Pay

You're free to Leave the planet Me in yo outer Space

Forget this temporary measure of lame,

The weightiness of what they say; it no longer Defines your day

Love is now part of your DNA, selfishness is Just insane

God's stalking you like a celebrity date,

It's happening in all 50 states

It's more than illegal you can't even escape

It's strange if you don't understand

You're better than all the mountains, valleys, And lands

Blushing with His thoughts make you redder Than a tomato plant

He won't maim you and Shame you; it's not Part of His plans

His Honor seats you farther than any of the Hired hands

It's not a judgment of the value of what they do

It's the reality of the relationship Hes got with You

Fathers will do anything for their son you see

But they wouldn't sacrifice that kind of thing For some bum on a street

I hope you're getting this relationally

You're not some bum on a street

You're the lover of His soul for eternity 2x

Chorus

His Love will make you bold

His Love takes your breath away

His Love honors you like gold

Makes you feel like you're the world on Display ay, aye, ay,

He'll make you feel like you're going

Cray, Cray, cray, cray,

He's so good you'll want to give Him

Away, way, way way

Getting a little now too close to home

Let His truth of what He sees dispel every Myth you know

The Spirit whispers are tenderly

His Love causing transparency

The fear of rejection's powerful thing

His unconditional acceptance trumps your Every single king

He loves you the way you are despite what Your worrying

You must catch the point of this amazing love Story

Glory doesn't lust cuz it trusts its the object of Such priceless adoring

Improvement may be a human anomaly

But Christ in you is now what He sees

Faith sees you the best that you will ever be

So the joy of relationship will put you right at Ease

You don't have to defend that which is quite Amazing

Cause Love doesn't see your flaws with all its Penetrating

It uncovers your gold that has been so

Deeply buried

Love always rests in what it has in the current Moment

Forget all those woulda, shoulda, coulda, Didn'ts

Let's call it for what it is

Unbelief in Beauty is compounded by fear of Accusation and performance compensation

Don't you see what is stopping you from that Passionate kiss

Knowing that the glory in you outshines any Problem of sin

Your name is like pure oil

Flowing from His Lips

Seeing your face was His greatest motivation

When being Lead to the cross and final Crucifixion

What a second

That sounds a lot like marriage

Where two people devote their lives to each Other in relationship

Nobody in their right mind would lay down Their life unless it was divine redemption

Cuz God of Heaven and earth did the very Worst crime

And the sole reason for doing the Time

To say mutually, wholeheartedly

My Beloved is His

And He is Mine 2x

Chorus

His Love will make you bold

His Love takes your breath away

His Love honors you like gold

That makes you feel like you're the world on Display ay, aye, ay,

He'll make you feel like you're going

Cray, cray, cray, cray,

He's so good you'll want to give Him

Away, way, way way

Bridge

Behind every mess, and every failed test

You're the gold finer than all the rest

And you're His Crest that's so wonderfully Fresh; anything else wouldn't stand a chance

So why don't you dance and clap yo hands, You're better than any Wal-Mart brand

All of Heaven remembers your name, they Know who you are is not a waste

You know what'll take away your shame, Knowing His Love...is...greater... than... Anything!!!

Chorus

His Love will make you bold

His Love takes your breath away

His Love honors you like gold

Makes you feel like you're the world on display ay, aye, ay,

He'll make you feel like you're going

Cray, cray, cray, cray,

He's so good you'll want to give Him

Away, way, way way

 | Personal Notes

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##

#  Lack & Peace

##

## Lack and Lust

I believe there are serious deficits of love in relationships and a surplus of lust and jealousy that is largely due to one word: lack.

A lack of value and not believing you're already complete in Christ leads to desires of lust or envy. A belief of lack leads to lusting after someone due to something that you believe you don't have.

Men and women can act differently, but can respond out of the same spirit. Men can have some area of lack and try to compensate by trying to be stronger, sexier, or cooler. Women can compensate by typically being sexier or smarter, but even though it may look different on the outside, it is still rooted out a place of lack on the inside.

It doesn't matter what we try to cover it up with, we have areas that we are insecure about. Insecurity could mean a lot of things. I am talking about obvious areas of lack: beauty, wealth, wisdom, knowledge, competence, etc. It could be all types of things. It doesn't matter what the fruit looks like, it all has the same lie of lack at its root. It's time to rip out these nasty roots out of your heart so that you can finally be free to love people with God's love which has no conditions attached to it. It's time to start believing that God sees you as complete in His Son Jesus Christ.

These are general principles for what I think tends to happen concerning the destructive pattern of lack in our lives. It doesn't have to be in this order, just a few things that tend to collectively build on top of one another.

We first believe an obvious area of lack in our lives. Uh-oh! Agreement with lack!

We then see ourselves as less valuable and significant and less worthy. Uh-oh! self-value judgment!

We feel perhaps ashamed and afraid if others saw it for what we believe we lack. Uh-oh! Here comes Shame and Fear.

We agree with the fear and approval of man to come up and with ways and compensate to cover up our belief of lack. Here comes Mr. Pride! When I get that fancy car, then they will finally see me as Mr. Special! When I get that sexy man or sexy outfit then I will finally be valuable in their eyes. When I get that job or special title, then finally others will start recognizing me as the man! Yea! That's right! Then they'll see...only then will they tell me how special and amazing I am...because I don't believe it right now...because I don't believe that God says that about me right now...Hmmmmm.

So how's that working out for ya?

By this time I am really in bondage to the fear of man and I need the approval of man to give me that ultimate peace and fulfillment I am looking for that I don't believe I have in God. Alas, the fulfillment you are looking to be attained is not going to happen because it is from a place of self-deception. It is all just a lie. I am looking for someone else to fulfill a desire rooted out of the lie that I am lacking something that I don't have in my union within Christ. You can't fulfill that desire because it is something you created in your vain imagination that had no substance to begin with. Desire from deception always leads to the promise of satisfaction, which are really just cheap empty promises with no pay off in the end. It is just an empty hollow egg shell. It is the carrot dangling in front of you that you will never reach. You will never reach it because it is not real. You cannot expect fulfillment out of a desire that is rooted in a lie because you are scratching an itch that does not exist. It is futile shadow boxing. You are hoping to drink a bunch of water to satisfy a desire of thirst that is only real in your own misunderstood creative imagination!

Would you believe it that this is the same struggle that the first woman ever created had? Yep, Eve gave in to the lie that she lacked in security, beauty, and wisdom (just so you know this can be applicable to the struggle experienced in all mankind, not just one gender). Let's check it out in Genesis 3.

##  As The Garden of Eden Turns

Eve saw that the fruit was desirable for food, desirable to the eyes, and able to make her wise.

First of all, a lie was believed that she had some area of lack which then gave birth to desire. The Spirit of Truth will birth desires in you, but so will the spirit of deception. Why would you desire something or lust after something you already have? You don't. However, Eve did believe she didn't have something good.

Second of all, Eve saw that the food was desirable to the eyes. This does not seem like a big deal, right? I look at food all the time and I eat it. I see the food on the restaurant menu and then I see it enter my mouth, just kidding. It is interesting that once you realize you have an area of lack, something that didn't seem to be desirable or pleasant a moment ago, now becomes irresistible to say no to. I am just putting this out to you. The word "eye" also has another definition as well to mean fountain. The serpent said that her eyes would be opened. In other words her spiritual "eyes", the fountains of her heart would be released! Her heart would be unlocked and her desire for things (you know the things she now starts to believe she doesn't have through deception), would be satisfied through this fruit now presented before her. This fruit that the serpent is tempting her with is what she believes that will completely satisfy these now turbulent waters of desire raging within her that have now been opened, not through love and trust, but through fear of lack and unbelief in the goodness of God.

Third of all, it says that Eve saw that it was able to make her wise. What's wrong with that, Daniel? Don't all of kinds of fruits give you energy to help your brain out to make you think better? Don't tell me I can't even eat fruit now! Again, I'm just kidding. Eve was deceived through lack, was aroused with desire to find its source of satisfaction in something false, and then she believed the lie that she needed the fruit to be wise like God to judge good and evil. Though Wisdom is a fruit of the Spirit, Wisdom is a Person, Jesus. It is not an object. Wisdom apart from relationship is empty. Wisdom driven for performance or out of lack will eventually become never enough. Wisdom birthed out of relationship is always life giving, always makes you feel complete and hopeful. It is never selfish. Knowledge puffs up. Eve was seeking out her sense of security in the pursuit of wisdom, instead of being secure in God, Mr. Wisdom Himself. If she believed she did have wisdom in first place, then it would not have been much of a temptation, now would it?

But a lack of wisdom says "Oh no, what will I do? I don't know how to do this or that! Who will guide me? Who will tell me? What if I mess up and lose everything because I don't know what to do and how to do it?"

Sound familiar?

Not only is that a slap in the face to God, but what about Adam? Eve looked to a piece of fruit for the guidance and wisdom, instead of asking Adam? Really? Talk about rejection. Next time you know someone that got cheated on, you can at least try to console them with this bible trivia of As the Garden of Eden Turns:

"Hey buddy! Can I cheer you up? It's not so bad; at least your wife didn't cheat on you with a piece of fruit! That's what happened to Adam!"

Well, I guess you're right. Adam got it pretty bad and then he did exactly the same thing to God as well! So God was then cheated on by a piece of fruit! Wow, God really got the short end of the stick on that one, or maybe the short end of the stem.

Joking aside though, do you see the progression happening?

Unbelief in God's goodness. Awareness of Lack. Fear of Lack prompting premature desire. Desire leading to a false sense of fulfillment. And then then the ultimate promise of security through false knowledge and false wisdom to replace the Real Peace, the Real Security and the Real Wisdom that is only found in relationship within God Himself.

So what's the good news in all this? Tell me something I don't know! What do I do with this huge glaring problem of lack and emptiness that I feel inside that makes me desire things and people that make me believe I need more than food or water or even the air that I breathe?

## Whole and Complete

I have good news for you! You are absolutely 100% complete and lacking nothing in your union with the Godhead through Jesus Christ!

I will say it again because it bears repeating over and over again until you get it:

You are right now at this very moment 100% complete in absolutely, positively lacking no good thing in your union with Father God, Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit because of Christ making Himself one with you through His finished work of salvation. You can be satisfied right now no matter what is going on in your life. It's true. Satisfaction has nothing to do with your circumstances. It has everything to do with your perception of union with God in Christ.

Peace has many definitions but one of them means to be complete, to be lacking nothing.

Peace is not something you have when something bad or terrifying is removed from your life. The Peace of God is not the absence of something bad. It is the Presence of Someone powerful in your midst.

Peace is a Person. His name is Jesus Christ.

It is through union with Him that you lack no good thing. He is the God of Peace and He lives inside of you. Mr. Peace, Mr. Satisfaction, Mr. Fullness has made His home inside of you with all the fullness of the Godhead crammed into every nook and cranny and cell and fiber of your entire being! You cannot have anymore of God living inside of you if you tried. Therefore, you cannot be any more complete even if you gained the whole world and were blessed beyond measure....Oh wait!

It's too late for that because that's exactly what the Father already did for you and to you and in you when He put you in His Son Jesus Christ! When you became the righteousness of God in Christ, He did just that!

He already blessed you with every spiritual blessing that Jesus has been sharing with the Father, well, since forever. He seated you in heavenly places in your union with Christ far above every ruler, power, and authority that could ever and will ever keep you in bondage. You are as powerful as you will ever be in your union with Christ right now. You will not be more complete if you get the girl or the guy. You will not be more powerful if you get the job or the car or the record deal. You are singlehandedly holding the most powerful "weapon" inside of you right now and He is currently residing in you and had pledged Himself to be with you forever. His name, of course, is Jesus Christ and He is madly in love with you and adores you beyond what our feeble attempt at human words can utterly describe. The most powerful Person that every walked the face of the planet also happens to be the same Person who is the most loving and most kind Person you will ever experience that also happens to be closer to you than the air that you breathe right now at this very moment.

This changes everything when we stop and think about the things that we need for our lives like food, water, shelter, clothing, and it most definitely applies to relationships as well.

From God's eternal perspective you are complete, yet we see from our temporary finite perspective that we do not have this or that. So we convince ourselves that we must not be complete because of what we perceive through our physical senses.

Theological newsflash!

We should not be basing our beliefs off of our physical senses, what we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch in the physical world. That's what Adam and Eve did! They believed the lie of lacking something good from God. They made a judgment in their heart that all the good things that God had given them and the Goodness of who He is to them was separated from them. It was not in their current possession because they believed He was not to them who He had always been to His own Son Jesus. There was a distinction, a difference, an exclusion, a distance in time and space, and ultimately a separation in relationship and favor in their minds. So you see, sin was birthed through the lie of separation and lack.

We are faced with the same challenge today, often many times in just a single day.

Do we believe the lie in our heart of hearts that says that we are not complete and lack something good, that at the core of that thing, whether it be provision, acceptance, love, etc. God is withholding from us and is presently separated from our reach?

Or do we believe the truth that says we are complete in our union with the Godhead and lack no good thing even though our eyes or any other physical sense may try to convince us otherwise?

## Testimony Time

I believe this area of lack has affected countless lives when it comes to personal relationships bringing much destruction to create unhealthy boundaries, fear and control, and bondage. All of these things not only can be resolved, but I believe they can be totally preventable through this amazing truth that will set you free. In my weakness and vulnerability, Christ is proven strong in me and I hope will be proven strong in you as I share my heart with you concerning some personal things that I have walked through.

I would like to give you an example to help bring it home for you. I'm simply sharing my experiences for what it's worth to help you. My experience is different than yours and that is ok. Take it or leave it. Receive it into your heart and leave it at the door. Either way is fine with me.

Although I've been spared the misfortune of being sucked into an unhealthy romantic relationship lasting unnecessarily too long, I believe I have been more than deceived and taken over by this lack mindset which created at worst, pervasive unhealthy thoughts and feelings that controlled me and at best, unrealistic goals and dreams for being with someone I thought would be my "soulmate."

On the contrary, I do believe there is a genuine anointing and leading for this kind of thing that can still happen today with Holy Spirit to lead you to someone special in your life. However, it comes out of such a strong presence of peace and rest, not out of a place of lack and striving.

As I look back, a thought in my mind grew and grew and took control over me when I started to believe that I was not complete in my identity in Christ. You will never have power over something if you believe you need it more than life itself.

It was not like the original thought was bad or lustful in origin. It was just a natural healthy thought of:

"Hey, I'd like to be with this girl. I should go after her. Let's give it a try. See what happens."

Eventually though, few and far between thoughts throughout the day about her turned into constant thoughts all day long. I would recognize this and have my mind distracted for a bit doing things here and there, but it would come and would feel more like an annoyingly stubborn itch that wouldn't go away than a life-giving healing balm that I believe love should naturally be. I recognized this mental gymnastics struggle going on inside of me and I would pray at night. I mean, pray a lot at night. The Presence of God would come and I would feel better and wouldn't feel anything bad telling me not pursue her all the more. I felt peace so I thought I was straight. Just so you know you can experience the peaceful presence of God, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you have experienced the Wisdom of God found in that place of peace. In other words, you can still experience the peaceful presence of God even though your thinking is still really jacked up. However, the next day even as I woke up in the morning these thoughts about her would come rushing in and it was not something I could control. That is a red flag right there. Why would God burden you with someone or something that is controlling your thought life? Holy Spirit is not about control. He is Freedom itself and ushers in freedom everywhere He is present.

Eventually, I bought flowers and was planning even more, but as she was clearly not interested in the same way I was and became eventually aware of this stark difference in personal emotion, we had the talk. You know that talk. Suffice to say, it was the shortest lunch meeting I have ever had in my lifetime and yes, it was hard, very hard.

FYI: Experiencing the personal sting of rejection does not mean the end of life. It means you have room to grow. It means you have opportunity for the fullness of the love of God to be made strong in you.

So I did what I always do in any situation. I prayed. As I praised and sung to the Lord, He comforted me in my lack and filled my soul again with hope. Despair started to camp its ugly tent over my future, but Hope broke through like the beautiful dawn on an overcast morning. The Spirit inspired two songs that I will always treasure in my heart to this day as a result. I experienced healing, freedom, and hope again. It was surely a breakthrough moment in only a matter of a few days. Hallelujah!

Much later on, Holy Spirit gave me deeper understanding of why this happened before and even happened again with someone else. I tell you this story to illustrate to you how even good thoughts can be twisted to bring about control over your life and possession of your mind when you are not firmly planted in being complete in your union with Christ in the Godhead. I was already on shaky ground and did not exercise self-control, so naturally these thoughts took control of me. One thing lead to another and someone in my mind, even though I would have denied it at the time, was my idol to make my life not only better, but would have "made my life complete."

##  The Lessons I Learned (more than once!)

Months later it suddenly dawned on me and Holy Spirit gave me deeper understanding concerning why this happened before and even happened again with someone else. Yes, many of us have to go around the mountain again and learn the lesson more than once.

As is healthy in the pursuit of many relationships, one often looks for admirable qualities in someone else. This is good and healthy and this is what I did as anyone else. The subtle trap I fell into, however, comes about when you look for qualities in someone else that you don't believe you already have in your complete identity within your union with Jesus Christ.

Your significant other should help reveal, reinforce and release what you already possess inside of you; they are not giving you what you don't already have within Christ Jesus. What happened to me as a result is that I struggled with rejection from others, fear of rejection, and self-rejection. I could get over rejection from time to time, but the root of lack is what still controlled me. I believe this is actually one of the main roots of addiction.

It is the world of difference of having the mindset to live from a place of peace or a place of being complete versus the mindset to live from a place of striving and a place of lack.

Let me give you some brutal painstakingly learned lessons to illustrate what I mean.

There was someone else I became friends with (and still am) that I admired for many reasons, but one quality I admired most importantly, was that she was very child-like in her faith and innocent as part of her personality. This greatly intrigued me to say the least and felt it complimented well with my personality, you know. This is all fine and dandy, but remember what I said earlier: If you see that which you admire in someone else to be lacking in your union in Christ, it can easily become a slippery slope for that person to eventually become an idol in your life.

They have something you don't believe Christ has given you already...something you don't believe you are in Christ, so that makes them a god over your life...uh-oh...

In this example, I really didn't think I was child-like and innocent in my union with Christ. Being child-like is such a vital thing in the Kingdom. It has everything to do with faith and how we see and relate to God. There was a shift in my mind at one point where I believed that she was more child-like than me and I did not have it as part of my already complete identity in Christ, so part of the attraction for her was perverted and filtered through out of a place of lack, not peace, not completeness.

So you see that even something good, desire for love, was twisted or perverted through a bad way of thinking, lack. Attraction and love is a good desire to have, but its origin was lack, and couldn't bear good fruit because it came originally from the wrong attitude of the heart. Bad seeds do not produce good fruit, no matter how hard you try to make it otherwise.

So if I repeat myself at the expense of sounding ridiculous and annoying like a broken record, that's ok with me as long as you really get what I am saying because it is so very important concerning the health of your identity and cultivating healthy relationships.

You are right now 100% complete in your union with Jesus Christ! You lack no good thing! You can be completely satisfied and full regardless of whatever circumstances are going on in your life. Contentment and Peace is rooted in a Person, not your circumstances or someone else.

Paul's contentment was not founded upon his circumstances, whether he had need or abundance. This is your inheritance right now because God has placed you in His Son Jesus. No more searching!

Relax you don't have to strive anymore. You get to now start enjoying what He's already freely given you. You couldn't get more of God or more complete in Him if you tried. Revelation of what you already have comes through rest, so just start resting in your already being complete in Jesus Christ who is already complete in His relationship with the Father and Holy Spirit.

Next I would like to share with you some lyrics that I wrote some time ago that talks about what Peace really is, how Jesus was fully dependent on the Father even though He was fully God, and lastly sheds some light on our identity as His royal sons and daughters of the King seated in heavenly places. Take your time and slowly meditate on it if you want to affect you inside and really sink in.

##  Reflection on Peace

Ephesians 1:3; Matthew 6:25-34; Philippians 4:11-13

Why you looking for this and that

The peace that you seek is The Man

Who took your beatings on his back

This is something

We seem to forget

Peace was freely given,

And deposited to our credit

Don't bother trying to work for it

In all your endless perspiration

An oft quoted scripture people like to admit

All things that you need will now be added

To your life by seeking His righteousness

I ain't trying to disregard Him,

There's just a truth He really tried to explain to Them kids

This Kingdom that I brought in and you've Been forever anticipatin'

Is a realm one day all of you will be livin' in

Through your union in my death and corporate Resurrection!

Do I need to say it again

Let me spell it out

Righteousness is closer than your own skin

Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost embodies all Of y'all now within

Chorus

Peace is not somethin you need to go searching for

Don't you know that all things are yours in the Lord

You have such a peace with so much around You changin'

Don't let what you see cause you to wanna be Escapin'

Why don't you trust that He did it all to really Save you

This includes everything cause He has forever Embraced you

He's forever embraced you

This is the dope

The world's got us sold

Even if no one

Seems to know

Check yo soles

It's Running rampant

Right under ya nose

Poverty is your lot

Lack's just something

Everybody's got

Let me tell you

What Peace really means

Everything as it ought to be,

Fulfilled, secure, totally complete

I forgot to mention one more thing,

His name's Jesus Christ,

You're in Him

Eternally

Let's Go back now

To history

You know that very Tree

In the Garden

With Adam and Eve

For whatever reason

They Chose not to eat

That crafty serpent

Put it in their head

That God was not true to what He said,

Like a punk kid,

He was really trippin'

"Eat of this tree and you won't be dead

You just can't see

I'm using trickery

To make you settle for religion instead"

Religion will tell you

To Pay extra for His Peace

Which in reality was something

They Already had for free

Independence just ain't

What's it's cracked up to be

When looking at Relationship in the Trinity

Have you been experiencing

This Love, bliss, and peace

Running in this family

It's all about dependence, son,

Don't you see

To think you can have something better

Is by far the greatest travesty

Christ lived his life perfectly,

By being a Son relationally

He knew His Father had his every need, even Though he was blingin' with Divinity

It didn't subtract

From His Sovereignty

He never stopped reigning

From the heavenlies

By living like a king dependently

He showed us the God kind of life,

With authorityin the darkest night

His shout dropped the final mic

Everything went upside flipside and inside out

Through incarnating broken humanity,

He made our true identity

Back to what it was originally...bro, that's what I'm talking about

Contrary to popular belief,

God is not some stingy, master full of tyranny,

If He's holding back His blessings

He's just imaginary

Well, the devil foolishly

Played right into the hand of the King

With This divine switcheroo

Of your positioning

You been raised up with Him

You're now seated royally

Though you were an orphan

Christ now made you a king

Were you listening cause it's still too hard to Believe?

Then it's worth a repeat

Though you were an orphan

Christ now made you a king 2x

Chorus

Peace is not somethin you need to go searching For

Don't you know that all things are yours in the Lord

You have such a peace with so much around You changin'

Don't let what you see cause you to wanna be Escapin'

Why don't you trust that He did it all to really Save you

This includes everything cause He has forever Embraced... you

He's forever embraced you

How about one more time

I'll expand your mind

It may seem whack but come along for the ride

Ain't got a life? Then try this on for size

Peace ain't a thing you should be seeking so Why aren't you eating Mr. Tree of Life

No need to go searching or hurting

You're livin' in Him who's without any sin

Mr. Jesus Christ

It all goes back to identity

The great exchange

From a servant to a king

No more Barriers

That are separating

This relationship

Full of every single blessing

What's the difference

From the prodigal to the son

The lie that he was no longer

A prince even though he was

The key to knowing you're blessed is knowing Where you're from

If you're too serious not to have any fun

Then you must be hearing wrong

The party of Heaven is the theme of your own Song

Don't pay attention to those brothers who want To ruin it all

They just don't see

Who they are from the very start

What they're working for has been theirs all Along

Listen up my son,

What is mine has now been yours... all along

What is mine has now been yours... all along

Chorus

Peace is not somethin' you need to go Searching for

Don't you know that all things are yours in the Lord

You have such a peace with so much around You changin'

Don't let what you see cause you to wanna be Escapin'

Why don't you trust that He did it all to really Save you

This includes everything when He forever Embraced... you

He's forever embraced you

 | Personal Notes

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##

#  Beauty & Freedom

## Beauty and Perfection

I want to directly address the issue of beauty and appearance. It happens to both men and women. It is not a one-sided gender issue.

Continuing on this idea of lack, the issue of beauty is very closely related so it bears its own chapter.

We have all struggled I believe at one moment or another, especially growing up as a teenager where we struggle with our self-image:

Am I beautiful? Am I sexy enough? Do I look cool enough? Am I strong enough? Do they like me? Do they approve of me? The list goes on and on.

Through the opinion of others the answers to these questions will either limit your value or destroy it.

What if you could so live in a place where you could actually believe that you are perfectly beautiful, perfectly holy, and perfectly good? What if this were true so that as a natural byproduct all the negative opinions of others concerning your beauty and value couldn't bother you one bit? Wouldn't that be so awesome? Wouldn't that be so amazing? What if this were actually true concerning your identity?

Guess what? It already is!

When God sees you He already sees you as completely beautiful, perfect, and good.

Uh, come again?

Let me give you an analogy to help you understand what I'm talking about.

Let's take someone whose face is absolutely perfect in beauty so that there are no blemishes, no pimples, no acne, no scars, and no wrinkles. They would not be lacking in anything good concerning their physical appearance. They are so beautiful that they are flawless in their beauty.

Now take someone else whose face is definitely not perfect in physical beauty in terms of the way that the world views beauty. I am not trying to be mean here, but this person just does not have a very pleasant face to look at. I'm talking about pimples, scars, wrinkles, discoloration, and more.

Now here comes the good news of the Gospel, the work of the righteousness of Christ. Let's say we take the off the face of the person who is absolutely perfect in beauty and put it on the body of the person who had the "not so pleasant" face and we take that face off and put it on the body of the beautiful person.

Guess what? The most expensive and most effective plastic surgery in all human history happened to you at the cross!

You have the beautiful face of Jesus Christ! More importantly you have His beauty, His holiness, His goodness, and His perfection! Congratulations! It didn't cost you a thing!

In God's eyes through the Person of Jesus you are judged perfectly good, perfectly complete, perfectly beautiful, and perfectly holy.

Your identity in Christ is good, beautiful, and perfect, even though your actions may not line up from time to time. The more you identify with your new identity in Christ and line up your beliefs and thoughts with that truth, the more your actions will tend to follow. The power of this truth or grace is what empowers you to live free from sin and alive in Christ-like love from out of this place of judging yourself the way God judges you in Christ. We have confused our definition of being perfect in our image or identity and being perfect in our actions. When we think of the word perfect, we think morally perfect, not messing up, making a mistake, doing some type of wrong action. While I am not advocating license to sin and do whatever you want, I am advocating that God is saying that right now you are lacking in not a single good thing because you are in union with His Son Jesus Christ which makes your image or identity good, beautiful, and perfect. You were made one with Christ who is Perfect Beauty, Holiness, and Goodness. To disregard His nature is to now disregard yours.

You are probably thinking to yourself right now:

"I am definitely not holy! I am not a good person! Ha! What about all the bad things I've done? I am anything but good. I don't look beautiful. I look in the mirror and am far from beautiful."

Well, I would like to point out that you are absolutely right! Lol. I agree with you. You are not good or holy or beautiful!

Wait, what? But you just said...?

Do you remember about the good news of the Gospel that I mentioned early on, that you were made brand new through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Well, this is the not so hidden secret of the Gospel for personal transformation.

Here it is:

The "I" or person that you're referring to no longer exists!!!!

"As far as the Law is concerned I may consider that I died on the cross with Christ. And my present life is not that of the old "I", but the living Christ within me. The bodily life I now live, I live believing in the Son of God, who loved me and sacrificed himself for me."

This is the good news of the gospel: You died with Christ! You died over 2000 years ago and apparently somebody forgot to tell you. Surprise!

The person that you believe you are now, the 'self' that is not good, not beautiful, not holy, not perfect, that person completely died and was buried when Jesus Christ died on the cross and was buried over 2000 years ago!

The person you are describing, the bad, guilty, lying, angry self may feel real to you at times and look real to you in the material world, but it is just a lie anchored in the ancient past that no longer has any relevance to your current existence. Are you still stuck in the past with a false identity that only has power over you because you believe it does?

So you just didn't die with Christ 2000 years ago; you were raised with Him to having now His new life, His new identity, not your old one.

You have permission and should now recognize that you permanently died and your current life is the same type of life and nature as that of Jesus Christ. You were born through Him over 2000 years ago. So...welcome to the family! Welcome Home!

I'll tell you what. Dying with Christ never felt so good. Well, I guess you really didn't feel anything at all, but the results are astounding, I should say, that Jesus really knows His stuff!

So, back to beauty...

So concerning beauty and perfection and holiness and goodness, we have to remember that God is looking at the righteousness of Christ, not our own. It is no longer I, but Christ. God has already calculated and judged you according to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The more we start to line up our beliefs and thoughts according to us being judged by His righteousness, the more we will experience transformation from the inside out, His righteousness already in us that will be experientially working through us like leaven working itself through a loaf of bread.

So let's take this a step further and really bring it home.

Activation: Talk to Jesus in the Mirror

We may look at the mirror and judge ourselves very pathetically:

"Look at me. I've got nothing to my name. I haven't done anything. I got nothing to show for. Look at so and so! They got it all together. A nice job, a nice girl, a nice reputation"...the thoughts just keep going on and on and on.

Instead of focusing on the "you" that you are tearing apart and judging according to your righteousness, focus on the Christ in you that is glorious and complete. Better yet, just look yourself right in the eye and start speaking to yourself in the mirror and talk to Jesus as if He was looking right at you (because well, He is).

"Jesus, you are so amazing. You are so full of glory and beauty. There is no flaw in you. You are so attractive and lack nothing. You are so holy, so completely perfect, so good, so beautiful. You are looking so good today, Jesus."

Now do the same thing again, but instead of using the name of Jesus, substitute your own name. You have permission to do so. It is no longer "I," but Christ who lives, remember.

Just call out the glory value and beauty and say it out loud even though your mind will tell you that you are absolutely crazy. Your spirit will connect, even though your mind may not. You can use your own words. Be creative. The point is to look past the physical and start judging yourself according to the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. You may have to do this many times before you even feel anything. That is ok. Truth is truth whether you feel it or not. God sees you in Christ. It is about time to align your thoughts and words with what He has always thought about you.

##  Unrequited Love for All

Hopefully by now you are starting to realize that God your Father sees you and relates to you no differently than anyone else. There is no exclusive elite "in" group that separates Christians from the rest of mankind. There are believers and unbelievers which deals with...belief! Your beliefs were not required to belong as God's beloved son or daughter. Furthermore, within each person they already have a new resurrected nature in Christ because Jesus Christ resurrected all humanity, not just a select few.

This is very important to remember because in this section I am going to go into great detail how beautiful and glorious you are to Jesus Christ, the lover of your soul. If you deny that you are somehow separated from Christ, then the rest of this will be for everyone else who is a "Christian," who belongs to some exclusive Jesus club where Jesus selectively hand picks the "remnant" few whom He chooses to only express and demonstrate His unrequited love.

That is a load of crap!

Jesus Christ died for all. Therefore, He passionately loves all. If the beloved does not know how much their lover adores them, their lack of knowledge is what keeps them from often times having genuine trust or "belief" which gives birth to eventually responding in love to the other in the relationship. They perish for lack of knowledge, the deep heartfelt knowledge of the height, depth, width, and length of such great love for them. However, this is far distinct from any human relationship not only because of the superabundant measure of Christ's love, but because it is one-sided, unconditional, unwavering for you simply because He is Love. He can't do anything else. It's just who He is.

Prepare to get into some hot and steamy language of love as I just pick out a couple different verses from Song of Solomon where the bridegroom is speaking to the bride and praising her beauty and describing the intoxicating effects it has on him. I am going to spend a bit of time here going through some different translations, definitions, and even quote from a couple commentaries. I am taking great lengths to go into detail here because we must first discover His love for us before we can even desire to love Him back, for our love is simply a byproduct of encountering His love for us (Scripture). Remember, you have already been brought into union with Jesus Christ because Christ made Himself one with all of corporate humanity. You are His bride described in this story. Don't write this off either because you are male instead of female. There is neither male nor female who is in union with Jesus Christ, but rest assured, you are still just as amazingly beautiful and glorious to Him if you are a male than if you are female. Jesus is most certainly not a sexist. You are the one that Jesus Christ is talking about here. You are just His bride that hasn't realized yet the profound love that Christ has for you. Prepare to drink deep of His intoxicating Love for you...

##  The King is Captivated by Your Beauty

Listen intently to the words regarding what kind of powerful effect that you have on the heart of the Bridegroom Jesus, the very King of kings and Lord of lords Himself. He is indeed captivated by you:

Song of Solomon 4:9

You have ravished my heart, my lovely one, my bride; I am overcome by one glance of your eyes, by a single bead of your necklace. (Living Bible)

You've captured my heart, dear friend.  
You looked at me, and I fell in love.  
One look my way and I was hopelessly in love! (The Message)

My sister [C an ancient term of endearment], my bride,  
you ·have thrilled my heart [drive me crazy];  
you ·have thrilled my heart [drive me crazy]  
with ·a [L one] glance of your eyes,  
with one ·sparkle [L jewel] from your necklace. (Expanded)

My darling,[e] my bride, you excite me!  
You have stolen my heart with just one quick look from your eyes,  
with just one of the jewels from your necklace. (Easy to Read)

Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse, thou hast wounded my heart with one of thy eyes, and with one hair of thy neck. (Douay- Rheims)

 | Thou hast taken hold of my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast imprisoned my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck. (Jubilee Bible)

My sister, my bride,  
you have carried my heart away!  
With just one glance, with one bead of your necklace  
you have carried my heart away. (Complete Jewish Bible)

Thou hast emboldened me, my sister-spouse, Emboldened me with one of thine eyes, With one chain of thy neck. (Young's Literal)

You have made my heart beat faster, my sister, my bride. You have made my heart beat faster with one look from your eyes, with one piece of the beautiful chain around your neck. (New Living Bible)

You have captured my heart,  
my treasure,[c] my bride.  
You hold it hostage with one glance of your eyes,  
with a single jewel of your necklace. (New Living Translation)

---|---

The language here is so undeniably clear: One glance of your eyes and your sheer unadorned beauty has captured the very heart of Jesus Christ!

Here are the definitions of ravish and rapture, of which enrapture is a synonym:

Ravish Rapture

verb (transitive)

1.(often passive) to give great delight to, enrapture

2. to rape

3.(archaic) to carry off by force

 | noun

  1. the state of mind resulting from

  2. feelings of high emotion; joyous ecstasy

2. an expression of ecstatic joy

3. the act of transporting a person from one sphere of existence to another,

esp. from earth to heaven

verb

4. to entrance; enrapture

---|---

I love the words and imagery used here. Ravish and rapture speaks of the way that when He sees your beauty and glory to such a degree that it causes this overwhelming emotional delight to such a degree that it takes his heart by violent force because literally He is so madly in love with you! Just one glance of your eyes makes Jesus Christ who is God Himself go outside of His mind over you!

Let's hear from some others who describe this much more in detail concerning this great scandalizing love that the bridegroom Jesus expresses to His beloved (you):

Regarding when The Bridegroom saying to the Beloved:

Behold, you are fair, my love! Behold you are fair

Charles Spurgeon offers His scandalous insights that may very well get under your skin in the best possible way:

"But to hear Christ turn round upon his Church, and seem to say to her 'Thou hast praised me, I will praise thee; thou thinkest much of me, I think quite as much of thee; thou usest great expressions to me, I will use just the same to thee. Thou sayest my love is better than wine, so is thine to me; thou tellest me all my garments smell of myrrh, so do thine; thou sayest my word is sweeter than honey to thy lips, so is thine to mine. All that thou canst say of me, I say it teach to thee; I see myself in thy eyes, I can see my own beauty in thee; and whatever belongs to me, belongs to thee. Therefore, O my love, I will sing back the song: thou hast sung it to thy beloved, and I will sing it to my beloved [bold added].'"

Verse 7 and 8 mentions your perfect spotless beauty in His eyes:

You are all fair, my love and there is no spot in you

One commentator says this:

After giving a seven-fold description of his maiden's beauty, the beloved summarizes his observations. She was more than fair; she was all fair, and there was no spot in her.

No spot in you: "The word is used only eighteen times in the Old Testament . . . generally in describing the perfect sacrificial animals which were required." (Carr)

Concerning the terms of endearment when He says, "My sister, my spouse," Spurgeon explains it is about the equality of her status in their relationship because of their union:

As if he could not express his near and dear relationship to her by any one term, he employs the two. 'My sister' - that is, one by birth, partaker of the same nature. 'My spouse' - that is, one in love, joined by sacred ties of affection that never can be snapped. 'My sister' by birth, 'My spouse' by choice. 'My sister' in communion, 'My spouse' in absolute union with myself [bold added]."

And again, Commentator Lange offers a similar insight:

"As Solomon's lawful wife Shulamithe now, after the marriage has taken place, stands next to him as a sister to her brother.8 She is not barely one of a number of wives (6:8) but a sisterly sharer of his royal rank and name. She is queen, as he is king, yes, a "prince's daughter...[bold added]"

Next we come back full circle to verses 9-11.

You have ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse! With one look of your eyes How fair is your love . . . How much better than wine is your love

Listen to these comments below and allow His love to melt your heart into mush:

Of ravish- not "thou robbest me of courage...but thou hast unhearted me i.e."robbed me of my heart, so that it is no more mine but thine," hast "enchanted me and made me wholly thine own."

"Lit.: Thou hast be hearted me. It implies the answering of heart to heart; the passing of one heart into another, so as to be united with it and fill it." (bold original)

His heart is now yours and yours His because you are so deeply in union with one another. As this type of love is revealed to you, you start to experience what has already happened, this complete oneness with Jesus Christ that already mystically took place culminating on the cross. For having and experiencing this type of union, love answers the why Jesus went to the cross in the first place:

A spouse so dearly bought and paid for could not but be dearly loved. Such a price being given for her, a high value must needs be put upon her accordingly; and both together may well set us a wondering at the height and depth, and length and breadth, of the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that love in which he gave himself for us and gives himself to us. Observe how he is affected towards his spouse: Thou hast ravished my heart; the word is used only here. Thou hast hearted me, or Thou has unhearted me. New words are coined to express the inexpressibleness of Christ's surprising love to his church; and the strength of that love is set forth by that which is a weakness in men, the being so much in love with one object as to be heartless to everything else. This may refer to that love which Christ had to the chosen remnant, before the worlds were, when his delights were with the sons of men (Prov. 8:31), that first love, which brought him from heaven to earth, to seek and save them at such vast expense, yet including the complacency he takes in them when he has brought them to himself [bold added].

And again:

"Never was love like unto the love of Christ, which made him even mindless of himself, when he emptied himself of his glory, and despised all shame and pain, for our sakes. The wound of love towards us, which he had from eternity in himself, made him neglect all the wounds and reproaches of the cross (Bishop Reynolds)." (bold added)

Furthermore, often times we do things out of raw obedience unto the Lord, which is fine. There is nothing wrong with that. However, we forsake the emotional passion that should be the driving force behind it when think our love for Him is any less valuable or meaningful than His love for us. I have often said, "Jesus, your love is better than life! It is the most precious thing in all the world! It is more valuable to me than this and that, etc."

What if Jesus Christ sees our love for Him in the same way in terms of its value and it being set apart from everything He could passionately want? Spurgeon here makes this very point:

"Now can you believe it? Just what you think of Christ's love, Christ thinks of yours. You value his love, and you are right in so doing; but I am afraid that still you undervalue it. He even values your love, if I may so speak, he sets a far higher estimate upon it than you do; he thinks very much of little, he estimates it not by its strength, but by its sincerity [bold added]."

Your obedience which naturally comes out of His love for you no matter weak or shallow, matters all the world to Him! Because you are His world, His treasure that He most delights in!

I hope that helps you realize just how much God really loves you and adores you. One last point I must make is this:

His unchanging, overwhelming, and passionate love for you makes you as bold as a lion and not afraid to just be you anymore.

One of the byproducts of being madly in love with someone is that you just don't care about what other people think anymore. It's true. What people think about you, their judgments of you, just doesn't seem to bother you much anymore. We can be quite afraid of being ourselves because of these judgments that other people have about us and we then often act out of character, trying to please everybody just to like us and validate us. This is called the fear of man. However, when you realize you are absolutely loved and adored by the very King of kings, God Himself that is crazy in love with who you really are, all that fear just begins to break off. His perfect love casts out all your fear. There's just no contest. Love never fails. It has already won.

##  Expression and Identity

I am starkly aware of the fact of what I have told you completely clashes against the world and the way society has programmed you to think and behave a certain way. It is quite a dramatic shift in thinking, I understand. It can be very hard to change what you have thought to be true for so long. The world teaches us to think so differently than the way the Kingdom of Heaven operates. The Kingdom of Heaven is directly opposed and upside down to the way the world thinks. For example, the world says do everything for yourself to be successful and fight your way to the top. Heaven says think of others before yourself and God will exalt you; the last shall be the first and the first shall be last.

Before I delve into the topic itself I would like to state the importance of why our understanding of freely expressing ourselves is so integral to what we believe about our identity.

This is clearly a controversial topic and can be covered much more in depth. I simply share my thoughts and ask you to consider them. This is more than a gender issue I believe. It is an issue that deals deeply within the universal human heart. I have struggled greatly with my own worth and personal sense of beauty. I have had my bouts of self-rejection and shame. However, through the grace of God and these changes in thinking I have experienced such freedom and now see myself with such glory and beauty that I love telling others how beautiful and amazing they are because I now know it to be true about myself!

With that being said, I hope you hear my heart loud and clear.

We have been taught that freedom is something we are allowed to do. Freedom is all about what we do: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to wear what we want, etc. I am not here to debate politics or the Constitution. I do not want to get into the laws of our freedom. I want to simply introduce a different perspective on what we have defined as freedom. I am not challenging how you express yourself. I am asking you to consider why you express yourself.

The world greatly champions the expression of our personal freedom that seems to make us powerful and independent while I believe Jesus Christ did not seem so upset about what He could and couldn't do, and He was fully God for crying out loud. Again, we have confused the action with the identity. Our logic is if I cannot express myself through my body on the outside, then I must be a nobody on the inside. Because clearly, my self-expression is who I am!

Foolishness I say!

Your expression of freedom is not what defines your identity; it only reveals one small aspect of it! Why are you limiting your identity to just one limited expression?! The fullness of the Godhead is in union with you. Is God limited to just one way of expressing His nature? Of course not! So neither should you! You're way too awesome to be limiting yourself like that.

It is foolish to think that wearing boots makes me a cowboy, wearing Vans makes me a skateboarder, etc.

You may think that I am making a big deal out of nothing, but inflexible labels and scathing judgments based upon how someone expresses themselves happen all the time. How quick are you to judge someone based upon what they look like?

Hear me out. I am not saying that we shouldn't judge people's actions, but what I am saying is regardless of how they act or what they say, they are still God's son or daughter, holy, beautiful, and full of glory. It doesn't take any faith to see dirt in people. It does, however, require faith to see the gold in them beyond how they are currently acting, the glory that is already true concerning their resurrected self in Christ. It is still there; they just may not have eyes to see it about themselves yet.

To get back to the point then, expressing yourself may help confirm to yourself that you are already amazing on the inside, but it does not suddenly change God's mind. He already knows you're amazing!

Let me give you an example to help illustrate this point with how expression, beauty, and identity may affect each other in rather subtle ways.

This is a general example used just to make a point.

Let's say for the sake of argument that you want to wear a bikini at the beach and your parents don't let you. If you want to wear a bikini and they tell you that you can't and you suddenly freak out...your self-expression of beauty might very well be tied to a not-so-beautiful judgment about your own identity. I am just wondering. Only you know where your heart is coming from.

We have so wrapped up "freedom" as part of who believe we are, part of our identity, that when someone restricts something we do like not wearing a bikini, we rebel and scream hate crimes all the while we subconsciously hate and rebel against the very thing that we see in the mirror every morning, even though God pronounced you very good in His image and likeness. Who is the real hater here?

What if when you say" You can't wear that bikini," you really hear "You are not beautiful" because without it, would you believe you still are?

Do you get it now? Do you see the difference?

But what if you were already beautiful to begin with, regardless of whether you wore the bikini or not, regardless of whether someone told you what you could or couldn't wear? What if you were already a perfect 10 "supermodel" beauty in God's eyes regardless of what society has told you concerning what is and what is not beautiful?

They can't take away your beauty or value because they didn't give it to you in the first place. Your Heavenly Father did. Your beauty shines through no matter what you wear, no matter what others say or think, no matter what "limitations" people try to put on you. Beauty never dies. The glory of God in you is always present and radiates like the rays of the sun. You are radiating the beauty and glory of God right now in whatever clothing you are wearing, whatever you smell like, look like, or see in the mirror every morning. God says you are good because of your union with Mr. Goodness. You are very good. You just are.

Glory doesn't try to express and prove itself. It just naturally stands out from all the rest.

## Redefining Freedom

We live in an age where independence is king. "I have rights!" I do what I want! You can't tell me what to do!

On a related topic altogether I believe because of the breakdown of the family unit, it has affected countless generations to value independence more than relationship all in the name of "freedom." This has resulted in scores of younger generations to figure out on their own what identity, beauty, value, success, love, and power look like (by no means am I excluding myself from this category).

Apart from relationship, we are left to our own devices to come up with answers for ourselves. To where do we find such answers that truly bring hope and positive change to our lives? Our peers? The media? Youtube? The latest pop star artist on tv?

If we believe that freedom is truly independence, then we will always desire to express ourselves apart from someone in relationship, forsaking the relationship for the sake of "freedom and independence." At the end of the day we will value our personal freedom more than relationship primarily because freedom is independence, and we can't have it both ways. Furthermore, if we believe that freedom is being free from the influence of someone else and to be always able to do what I independently want, then in order to hold onto that freedom it requires me to separate myself if at any point they are jeopardizing my freedom and I feel like I am not free anymore in that relationship.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to propose a different idea regarding freedom (drum roll please):

Freedom is not the absence or separation from someone in relationship; it is the Someone found only in the context of relationship.

Perfect freedom was personified in the man Jesus Christ. His freedom was found in His relationship with His Father. Freedom is discovered through participation with Holy Spirit. Freedom is the Presence of God manifest. Freedom exists only in dependent union within the family of the Godhead.

I want to be very clear on this:

Freedom outside of relationship is a big fat bold lie. Independence is not Freedom.

Separation from God does not make you any freer than if a fetus tried to be free and separated itself from the umbilical cord of the mom feeding and nourishing it in the womb. It may be free from the dependent connection of the mom, but it surely will not be free to live very long. Life is only found in union. Death is the consequential effects and ultimately the end result of the independent self in its vain striving to be separate from God. If the Gospel is all about becoming one with the Godhead through your union with Jesus Christ, then the belief of separation is the great sin that prevents you from experiencing all the blessed fruits of eternal life found out of that place of fellowship within His union with you. He is closer than the air that you breathe. He has already flooded your entire being with all of Himself, with all of the Godhead. Stop believing that your sin separates you from God. Jesus Christ delivered you of your account of sin and guilt when He went in the grave and His Blood has cleansed your conscience making you innocent and blameless before God. You are one. What Jesus Christ did was enough. Nothing further was needed and nothing further is required of you. It is all Him. It is all from Jesus Christ, through Jesus Christ, and for Jesus Christ. No independent effort of your own is required or needed. Just enjoy your complete union and the revelation of His Love will change you from the inside out.

Activation: Drinking Time!

If freedom is found within fellowship with this Person, then the more you experience this Person the more you will experience freedom. It's that simple. What's even simpler is that the Holy Spirit who is the embodiment of Freedom already lives inside of you. Remember, there is no separation. It is only in your vain creative imagination.

The Holy Spirit is described in the bible as a fountain of Life, a never ending river that flows from the inside of your belly, your inner most being. I have experienced this river-like Holy Spirit out of my inner most being too many times to count. I am helping you to now experience Holy Spirit for yourself. I am helping you to experience what true freedom is, not a material expression of it. Take a drink of real Freedom. Don't try to think too hard. Become like a child. Have fun with Holy Spirit. Use your imagination a little. Fun is the Holy Spirit's middle name! Here we go...

Imagine there is a bottomless barrel of wine on the inside of you. It never runs out. The wine is absolutely free. No payment or work on your part is necessary. Now imagine there is a wine barrel spout located right in front of your belly. Imagine grabbing a glass and putting it under the spout. Now turn that spout and fill 'er up! See that wine flowing out and even spilling out over your glass.

Now comes the best part, the drinking!!

Bottom's up. Tilt your head back and have a big drink! Don't just stop with one drink. Fill up your glass again and have another and another and another until something happens.

The point is not experiencing the same type of manifestation as me or anybody else. The point is experiencing Holy Spirit who is already living on inside of you! Enjoy Him!

Drink in the wine of the Spirit and have your fill. He is better than any drink of alcohol or drug out there. There just is no comparison.

Here is the last reflection called Freedom that talks about realizing our glory in God's eyes and from out of that place coming to a new place of freedom in just being ourselves. To wrap up from the last couple points, the freedom of expressing ourselves does not come out of a place of needing to prove ourselves to others. We can take off all the masks, lay aside all the insecurities, and stop comparing ourselves to others. The Love of God heals your hurts, resurrects your dreams, and truly sees glory where you may have only thought was an unworthy cause and beyond hope. Let your heart come alive with passion and dream again as you discover that you are created in the glorious image and likeness of God.

##  Reflection on Freedom

Genesis 1:26-31; Romans 8:28-30; Psalm 8:3-8

This lesson that I now know

Others are not my ultimate hope

What I was afraid of, don't you see, it was Stopping me

Causing me to worry

This unnecessary journey

Cuz In the beginning

God was not creating

Me to be,

Check it out now y'all

I really just tried to be Somebody Else's, Story(2x)

Just some cog in a machine

Never-ending

Not satisfying

I kept pacifying

Even though Christ was sacrificed to make me Free

No more blazing, no more burning

Just a shell of a false identity

But now I see so very clearly

I will now shout to the world, the whole Universe

This is who God made me to be

I am His, Glory!

I am His, Glory!

Nobody else can really tell me

Out of What I now truly believe

For the whole world to see

What He powerfully, so fearfully put inside of Me,

You wanna be complete

Here's your awakening

Here's your awakening

Chorus

Such an irony,

The me you see is nothing like the God that is living, breathing, stirring, ever presently

Lo and behold, the same God that is wooing, Pursuing, luring you into the same discovery

What a journey, to find Who's connecting you And me,

Originating from the same divinity

Cuz we're all parts of one family

Ya heard

It's called the Blessed Trinity

It's called the Blessed Trinity

Such freedom you can't believe

Such purpose you cannot conceive

Such life you'll wanna receive

The freedom of your identity

Flows out of the love in your family

They Call you forth in destiny

They Love you so passionately

Such Passion beyond your wildest dreams

Such relentless Love

That always believes, That never concedes

To the fears the world accepts so, trivially

Stand up and shout for the whole world to hear

Sho nuff

Their Love casts out, all your fear

Their Love casts out, all your fear

For my Beloved accepts me just as I am

What He sees in me is just so grand

Just understand

He is enough

Always enough to make it through

All He's asking of you to be is to be you

And you will see what He can do

Never underestimate who you are

For who you are is always by far

The truth of why God set you so apart

Cuz what you bring out is just His beautiful Mark

You forgot The Mirror from the start

Now Look again

You're a selfie, of His heart

You're a selfie, of His heart

Chorus

The Answer to their greatest need

Lies deep inside,

Don't try to hide

Don't try to hide

In nobody else is such glory found

Just let it out. Just let it out

You are the Father's song that He singing about

You are His sound. You are His sound

One more point I'd like to make

If you sure didn't catch the first take

You are truly ever complete

When Jesus is your true identity

From the first, last, and everything in between

You don't have to please

And get on your knees

Bending over backwards for flying a trapeze

Just know that what is deep inside of you

Is something

Brand new the world needs for their ultimate Break-through,

Don't wait too late, just go real soon

The greatest regret the world ever met was not Shooting for the moon,

Just Go ahead now kid, just shoot for the moon

Chorus

The Answer to their greatest need

Lies deep inside,

Don't try to hide

Don't try to hide

In nobody else is such glory found

Just let it out. Just let it out

You are the Father's song that He singing about

You are His sound

You are His sound

 | Personal Notes

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#  Conclusion & Summary

If some or all of these key truths of your identity covered in this book got lost in translation (If you did make it this far, congratulations!), I would like to summarize some of the identity statements and main ideas we have gone over. There are of course, many, many more, but this should be a good start for you. Let these identity "I" statements become a part of you, not just something you say, but who you know you are in the depths of your heart. This is simply a way to help you understand this. This is not meant to be a mantra or some secret formula to be closer to God or to achieve enlightenment. I even suggest you put the ideas of these statements into your own words to make them personal and real to you, not religious and formulaic.

I am the Righteousness of God in Christ Jesus

  * I am loved by God regardless of my behavior. My performance does not equal my value before God.

  * I cannot and will not change the way God sees me by trying to please Him with my actions.

  * I am unconditionally liked, loved, and valued by Father God.

  * I was purposely created out of God's family to be loved and cherished as His own beloved son or daughter created in His image and likeness.

  * I have been accepted into God's family just as I am and belong as His son or daughter.

  * I have been placed into Jesus Christ and completely relate to God not through my past physical life experiences, but through the life and person of Jesus Christ.

  * I died with Jesus Christ on the cross and the nature, power and dominion of sin over me was neutralized and was removed over 2000 years ago.

  * I became a brand new creation when I was resurrected with Christ and have His mind, His feelings, His desires, and His heart. I am not trying to become a new man in Christ. It has already happened to me over 2000 years ago.

  * I have been 100% qualified into this union with the Godhead solely because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Jesus singlehandedly made me one with God and made me a new creation. I had no contribution to make this happen. Nothing I did or believed made this happen.

  * My true nature is that of Jesus Christ. For example, I am Love. I am Joy. I am Peace. I am Patience, etc.

I am Valuable

  * The Cross revealed my priceless value before God. It revealed the glorious image and likeness of God that I was originally created in.

  * God defined my value and worth. Nothing else or no one else can put a limit or price tag on my God-given value.

  * God's covenant with me does not depend on my works. It is a two sided covenant between Father God and His Son Jesus Christ that solely depended on the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and Him alone. His righteousness allows me to enjoy all the benefits that Jesus has in His covenant as my own.

  * I have always belonged as part of God's family. I was never lost from God's point of view. I only became lost in my own mind. I am only "lost" when I identify my nature, my life, my emotions, and my thoughts as being separate from God apart from my union with Jesus Christ.

  * God is not ashamed of me. God is not disappointed in me. God rejoices over me! He is very proud of me as His son or daughter. He even brags about me to the entire heavenly host.

  * I am completely forgiven by God and free of the stain of guilt, shame, and condemnation because of the blood of Jesus Christ. His innocence in God's eyes is my innocence and I choose to accept this truth of how God sees me according to His Son Jesus.

I am Whole and Complete

  * I lack no good thing with the Godhead through my union with Jesus Christ.

  * I am right now 100% complete in my union with Christ.

  * I have already been blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. I am discovering more and more through revelation from Holy Spirit what I have always had and who I have always been in Christ.

I am Beautiful and Holy

  * I am holy, beautiful, perfect, and full of glory before God. God has judged me this way solely because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. I don't have to try to be holy or beautiful or glorious, it is just who I am in Christ. It is my true identity.

  * God's judgment of me being holy, beautiful, perfect, and glorious does not change from day to day regardless of my experiences or what others tell me.

I am Free and Powerful

  * Freedom is not what you can and cannot do. Freedom is the Spirit of the Lord who empowers you to be free in dependent union within the Godhead through Jesus Christ. There is no "I" in freedom.

  * I am free to be who I am in Christ. I am free to love others from out of the Spirit of Freedom and free to become love from out of my resurrected self in Jesus Christ.

##  About the Author

Daniel Welsh is the director of Lifepoint Healing Ministries located in Tallahassee, FL. In addition to writing Go Get 'em Kid! Blessings for Your Children Every Month of the Year and There's No High Like the Most High: Why I am a Christian Addict Hooked on Jesus, Daniel enjoys writing and speaking about the life transforming power of grace found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. More info on his outreach ministry, The Cana Connection, geared towards introducing people to the love of Christ specifically in bars, clubs, and other rough neighborhoods can be found on his website: Danielwelshrevival.com. He received his bachelors of social work degree from Florida State University in 2010 and graduated first year through Lifepoint School of Supernatural Ministry in 2014. He currently resides in Tallahassee, Florida and considers Lifepoint Church very much a part of his own family.

For example, Isaiah 53:4b should be properly translated "We saw his suffering and thought God was punishing him." For much further academic critique on Penal Substitution Theory (PSA), I recommend Stricken by God? : Nonviolent Identification and the Victory of Christ by Brad Jersak and Michael Hardin (2007), and the sections on atonement theory in Understanding the Whole Bible by Jonathan Welton (2014). There are many more resources available concerning this critique of PSA. They are not hard to find.

 Genesis 1:26

 Galatians 5:22-23

 Whenever you hear the word redemption, think belonging. Jesus Christ redeemed the world because mankind belonged to God in the first place. In order for something to be lost, it must first belong. If you lost your shoes, the shoes had to have belonged to you in the first place.

 Hebrews 3:1-6; Hebrews 2:9-13

 Mitchell, Jonathan. Peter, Paul & Jacob: Comments on Colossians. N.p. Harper Brown Publishing, 2012.

 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

 "The core meaning of the Greek word en is: in; within; within the midst of; or: in union with (where one is actually also within another"- Mitchell, Jonathan. Peter, Paul & Jacob: Comments on Colossians.

 Mitchell, Jonathan. The New Testament, God's Message of Goodness, Ease and Well-Being, Which Brings God's Gifts of His Spirit, His Life, His Grace, His Power, His Fairness, His Peace and His Love. N.p. Harper Brown Publishing, 2009.

 Romans 5:12-19

 Olson, Roger E. The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1999.

 Ibid.

 John 17:20-26

 Hebrews 8:6-12. Note the exclusive number of 'I wills" on God's behalf. Note the scandalous absence of "man wills" and conditions i.e. "I will be merciful, but..."

 Torrance, Thomas F. The Mediation of Christ. Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard, Publishers, Inc. 1992.

 Ibid.

 Romans 8:31-34

 1 John 4:17

 Matthew 13:44-46

 John 14:23, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

 Dolphin, Lambert. "The Treasures of the House of the Lord." Nov. 1992. Web. **http://www.templemount.org/TMTRS.html**

 **Ibid.**

 Colossians 1:26-27

 Romans 5:8

 Matthew 9:10-13, 11:19; Luke 7:39; Luke 15:2; Luke 19:7

 Hebrews 13:5 Amplified Bible

 Luke 15:1-32

 2 Corinthians 5:21

 Romans 8:1

 Genesis 3:6

 "The eye reveals the heart of the person. A well, spring or fountain as the eye of the ground." Benner, Jeff A. Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible. College Station, TX: Virtualbookworm.com Publishing, 2005.

 James 3:17

 From a primary verb eiro meaning :to join; a state of national tranquility; harmony; security, safety, prosperity, felicity, quietness, rest, to set at one again." Blueletterbible.org. 2016.

 Ephesians 1:3

 Matthew 6:25-34

 2 Peter 1:3; Philippians 4:13; 1 Corinthians 3:22-23; Luke 15:31

 Matthew 7:16-20

 Philippians 4:11-13. The word for content means to be possessed of unfailing strength, to be strong, to suffice, to be enough, to defend, ward off, to be satisfied, to be contented. Blueletterbible.com. 2016.

 Ephesians 1:4; Colossians 3:12

 Galatians 2:20; Romans 6:3-11

 The New Testament in Modern English by J.B Phillips. 1960

 www.biblegateway.com

 www.Dictionary.com. 2016

 Song of Solomon 4:1

 "Song of Solomon 4." Guzik Bible Commentary. www.Biblehub.com. 2013. Web.

 Song of Solomon 4:7

 "Song of Solomon 4." Guzik Bible Commentary. www.Biblehub.com. 2013. Web.

 Ibid.

 "Song of Solomon 4." Lange Commentary. www.Biblehub.com. 2013. Web.

 Song of Solomon 4:9-10

 "Song of Solomon 4." Lange Commentary. www.Biblehub.com. 2013. Web.

 "Song of Solomon 4." Matthew Henry Commentary. www.Biblehub.com. 2013. Web.

 Ibid.

 "Song of Solomon 4." Guzik Bible Commentary. www.Biblehub.com. 2013. Web.

 2 Corinthians 5:21 "For God caused Christ, who himself knew nothing of sin, actually to be sin for our sakes, so that in Christ we might be made good with the goodness of God." The New Testament in Modern English by J.B Phillips. 1960

Cover photo by Evan Howard
