Happy Monday and thanks for joining our band of Making Space for God friends. I told someone yesterday that we need to do this together. Paul describes in his letter to the Ephesians, that we are a community bound together in our love for Jesus. We are on this spiritual journey of deepening our faith together and that brings me great encouragement. Today’s topic is a question, ” Who am I?” It’s a question that we all, at one time or another, ask ourselves. This could be in reference to finding your family ancestry, or perhaps seeking your calling/purpose or simply seeking to know more about yourself.
Understanding that we are made in God’s image is the first step– I mean really grabbing hold of this truth. Knowing that God breathed life into your being and that you are His is foundational to the Christian faith. But we all long to know more, desiring a deeper answer to this question of knowing who we are. The more we seek God, the more we find Him and the more we find Him, the more we find ourselves. Jesus posed this question to His disciples:
Who do the people say that I am?
And then He asks the same question again, only it became more personal.
Who do YOU say that I am?
The disciples replied that people thought Jesus was John the Baptist, or Elijah or another prophet. But in response to the same question Peter answers:
You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.
Peter knew who Jesus was; the Son of God. Established in his mind and heart, He knew who Jesus was. And this is the first question we must answer:
Who do you say He is?
If you know Him as the Son of God who came to bring freedom, you will discover who you are. Jesus came to set the captives free and we, once captive, are free in Him. And here is the good news. It’s time to ditch our false self- the one we created instead of the person God created. It’s time to be free of the burden of trying to be someone else; ridding ourselves of the masks we wear, no longer chained to our false self. It’s time to see ourselves as God sees us.
Peter was quick to answer that he knew who Jesus was– the Son of God and Jesus replied:
Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.
Friends, we all must answer this question and if we are honest with ourselves we all have doubts. Did Jesus really have to die on the cross? Is He really the Son of God? Like Peter, it is only by divine revelation that we are able to grab hold of this truth. And it is our ticket to ridding ourselves of our false self and embracing who we really are.
