Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – what I am capable of is reflective of what I have allowed to shape my nature.
John 2:23-25 TPT
[23] While Jesus was at the Passover Feast, the number of his followers began to grow, and many gave their allegiance to him because of all the miraculous signs they had seen him doing! [24] But Jesus did not yet entrust himself to them, because he knew how fickle human hearts can be. [25] He didn’t need anyone to tell him about human nature, for he fully understood what man was capable of doing.
Observation
When you read that Jesus “fully understood what man was capable of doing’” your response to that is based on how you understand Jesus to be. If he is the God of judgement then run like the wind, if he is the God of love, then come close for he knows you. God knows me, the true me, the made in his image me, and he knows the corruption of that image in me. He invites me to himself for only here do I find my true self. My search for God is a search for self. God knows what I am capable of being in Him, and he knows what I am capable of when separated from his love. Ultimately the destruction that man is capable of is systematic of the separation of man from God, so God gets what happens in us when we don’t live in his love.
He does not judge us with fiery disapproval and punishment but invites us into the intimate embrace of his love. Any removal from love is an amplification of darkness, this is why being forgiven forever, an uninterrupted presence with God, and being made in Jesus perfectly right with God, are critical understandings of his grace that must never be sacrificed to satisfy the enemy’s voices of condemnation. Moralistic demands never bring about transformative life, and coercive manipulative threats never change me, only being in the presence of love am I able to be who I am truly, for it’s from my personal experience of the nature of God that I reflect my true nature, him.
Application
God knows human nature, he knows you, he knows what you are capable of, and yet his invitation remains unchanged, his passion for you remains, and his love for you still invites. We must realise that the part of my nature that is not congruent with God’s nature is only changed in the presence of his nature, that is why I will always enter his presence with my nature to be made new by his.
Response
Thank you that you do not punish sin, you love it to newness. Thank you that the most amazing me is found in you, you invite into you to know the amazing me, made in your nature. Thank you that the search for me is not a self-guided adventure that I must mount the courage and fortitude to somehow take the journey, but rather it is a submit to love invitation that I choose when I enter your presence.
Meditation
Meditate – God knows me, my nature.
Consider:
Do you see your search for God as a search for self?
When you meet God do you see the true self you?
JOURNEY DEEPER
