Becoming The Person God Created Me To Be
Part #5 “Are We There Yet?”
Over the past month we’ve looked at the typical hindrances that we encounter in
becoming the person God created us to be.
We’ve looked at our issues,
We’ve learned that issues are the result of wounds,
Wounds cause pain because they are shaming,
Shame causes us to reject ourselves,
Which is the source of our issues.
Then last time we explored the thought that our relationship with God is often
shaped by our relationships with our earthly fathers.
I asked you to enter into the 7th spiritual discipline contemplation to
wrestle with the idea.
As I reflected back over that message the question I raised concerning Jeremiah
Bears repeating.
Jeremiah 29:11-14 (MSG)
I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. "When you call on me, when you come and pray to me, I'll listen. "When you come looking for me, you'll find me. "Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I'll make sure you won't be disappointed." God's Decree. "I'll turn things around for you.
Can you entrust yourself into God’s care and plans for you,
Or does the thought make you nervous?
If you don’t trust God, you’re going to have tough time becoming the person
He created you to be.
Hopefully I’ve exposed some of the snares that can hinder your spiritual
development.
“In some ways I know we are as confused as ever.
But I believe that we are confused on a much higher level and
about far more important things.” (Wilson, p. 221)
Today I want to speak about that person that God created you to be.
Who is that person?
What is that person like?
What does this person do?
And what’s our part in becoming this person.
The person God created you to be is a person who is in fellowship with Him.
Months ago we spoke about our belief in God as Triune.
God revealed to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Not three Gods, not three parts of God,
but the three existing as unity.
Love is perfectly shared within the communion of the Trinity.
There is an eternal dance going on,
A shared consciousness,
complete and fulfilling.
life sustaining and creative.
And the person God is creating you to be is a person who has been
welcomed into that dance.
John 14:2-4 (MSG)
There is plenty of room for you in my Father's home. If that weren't so, would I have told you that I'm on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I'm on my way to get your room ready, I'll come back and get you so you can live where I live.
God desires that you be in the dance of the Trinity,
Loving and be loved, knowing and being known.
The person God created you to be is a person who is living their life to the full.
When you are living your life to the full,
There is a certain quality of relationship that you share with others.
Definitely not all others, but with enough others, that you feel secure.
This relationship is characterized by mutual sharing.
It’s a two-way street relationship
Giving and receiving, offering and taking,
Might think of it as a 50/50 partnership.
Love—a mutual seeking to meet the need of each other,
Is part of that relationship
Trust—knowing that your heart is safe with each other,
Is another vital part.
Where love and trust are mutually shared there is acceptance and belonging.
There is no shame, no secret, which can not be brought into
fellowship.
John 10:10 (NKJV)
The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
Living life to the full, living it abundantly also involves knowing the purpose for
your life, which gives your existence meaning,
and then as your go about doing the things God created you to do,
your life becomes significant.
God desires you to live your life to the full.
To share in His rich familial fellowship.
The person God has created you to be is a person just like Jesus.
The character of Jesus is found in the fruit of the Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT)
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
This fruit is what Jesus is like
If the Apostles, that inner circle of disciples were asked to describe Jesus in
one word, these would be some of the answers.
God is creating you into such a person.
It’s His desire that you be known as a person of love,
A man of joy,
A woman of peace,
A person of patience.
One who is kind, good, faithful, gentle and who always
maintains self-control.
When I think of becoming like Jesus,
I think of the Apostle Paul telling us to have the same mind,
the same attitude of Jesus.
Philippians 2:5-8 (MSG)
Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.
Here is a person willing to do whatever is necessary to accomplish the will
of God.
One who came to serve and not be served,
One who can make a difference for someone else.
That’s the kind of person God has created you to be.
He gives you the opportunity to bear the family resemblance
The person that God created you to be is one who reflects his glory.
Let me let you in on a little secret.
You know those wounds,
Wounds when they have healed leave a scar.
Jesus bore scars after the resurrection.
In the gospel according to John chapter 20, Thomas says he’ll need to
see and touch the scars to believe,
Jesus gives Thomas the opportunity.
“Scars speak; some speak loudly and others softly.
Scars tell a story.
… they tell the story of God’s life-transforming grace and death-
transcending power.” (Wilson p. 226)
Our scars are a picture of his glory,
A picture of His power to redeem,
to heal, to bring about good from the bad.
No need to hide the scars,
They are a witness to God’s glory and grace.
They are a gospel unto their own,
A way to tell the good news to others.
God desires to allow Him to use your life to tell His story,
That you reflect His glory.
Scars and all.
The person that God created you to be is not a person exempt from pain and suffering,
Not a person free from the infirmities of life,
From weakness, from making mistakes,
Not a person whose best intentions never backfire from time to time,
or who never makes a bad choice,
Or never sins.
Not a person without faults, issues, wounds and shame.
Not a person without some major failures.
Not a person with great confidence in their abilities.
God desires to stand with you through all those things.
The person God created you to be is the person He loves.
This is the love of God,
He created you, conceived you in love.
He redeemed you, greater love has no one than this, that he lay
down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)
He made you his Child.
And He has reserved for you an inheritance
of righteousness. (Romans 8:17)
This is the person God walks through the valley of the shadow of death with.
The person God created you to be is one who can do awesome things.
John 14:10-12 (NIV)
The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
These greater things are unique to yourself.
They have to do with fulfilling your calling,
Allowing yourself to be used of God as his ambassador,
as His Minster of reconciliation. (2 Cor. 5:20)
You may not realize it but God has already sent you into the mission field.
That’s right you, don’t have to worry that God will call you to be a
missionary, he already has.
He has placed you where you are right now to be salt and light to the people
in your world.
God desires to do awesome things through your life,
He will make you significant.
Achieving what no one else in all creation could have done.
The person who God created you to be is capable, and competent.
One equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:17)
A person of doing, a person involved,
a person that others can count one.
A person whose compassion accomplishes need meeting things.
A person who is a workman,
Down in the spiritual trenches fighting for kingdom business.
A person through whom God works.
God desires to empower you in every area of your life to accomplish His
will in this World.
What an incredible person God has created you to be.
God created you to be is a person who is in fellowship with Him:
who is living their life to the full;
a person just like Jesus;
one who reflects His glory;
the person He manifests His love in;
one who can do awesome things;
a person who is capable and competent.
God makes everything glorious.
2 Peter 1:5-8 (MSG)
So don't lose a minute in building on what you've been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus.
As you mature—that’s what becoming is all about,
Growing up, becoming spiritually mature.
God empowers us to grow up into this person we’ve described today.
Into the person he created you to be.
But you only get one big zap.
That has already occurred if you
accepted the fact that you needed a savior,
believed that the savoir you needed is Jesus and
committed yourself to being his disciple.
When God accepted your faith,
You were spiritually reborn in an instant
After that one zap,
There is no instant maturity—
Rather we embark on a process of change;
the journey of discipleship.
A transformation into the image of God.
Everyday becoming more and more the
person God created you to be.
What’s our part in becoming this person?
Of all the spiritual disciplines there is one that is indispensable.
That discipline is obedience.
Jeremiah 7:23 (NIV)
Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you.
Without its practice, you will not grow up in your faith.
You will get older, but you won’t grow wiser,
You won’t know how to apply all the truth you’ve learned.
Obedience, obey, we don’t care for the word.
We want to be in charge.
I guess we all have authority issues don’t we?
We all want to have a say in matters.
We all desire a degree of independence.
But with out obedience, you’re stuck.
2 Chronicles 24:20 (NIV)
'Why do you disobey the LORD's commands? You will not prosper.
Obedience is an attitude of the will towards God.
An absolute abandon to His will,
an unconditional surrender. (Oswald Chambers, Biblical Ethics, p. 89)
But its not a coercive surrender.
God does not force you.
It’s a surrendering to His love.
Obedience is faith and trust in action.
Practicing the spiritual discipline of obedience
there is no weighing the pros and cons,
there is no asking for an explanation,
there is no requesting a guarantee.
(Oswald Chambers, Disciples Indeed, p. 71)
His love compels you to obey,
To say no to your way, to the ways of the world,
And do life according to the Word of God.
Psalms 119:167 (MSG)
My soul guards and keeps all your instructions— oh, how much I love them!
Obedience is the result of a right relationship with God,
You are not blessed because you obey,
Though obedience does bring blessing.
You obey because it is the fruit of righteousness,
The consequences of the new birth.
(Oswald Chambers, Run Today’s Race, p.64)
Luke 11:28 (NIV)
Blessed … are those who hear the word of God and obey it."
Obedience is a demonstration of our love for God.
1 John 5:3 (NIV)
This is love for God: to obey his commands.
In that same passage, the Apostle John tells us that if we love God we will
also love His children.
1 John 5:1 (NIV)
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.
When love is at the center of all you do,
Obedience is the visible proof.
Your part in this process of becoming the person God created you to be,
Is obedience.
Psalms 119:101 (NIV)
I have kept my feet from every evil path so that I might obey your word.
Its in His word the Bible that you will find the things God wants you to obey.
Most of us are already educated beyond our level of obedience.
We know what we should be doing,
but we fail to do it.
Pray for God’s grace,
The desire to do his will,
And the power to do it.
A prayer for grace is often a contemplative prayer.
You allow the Holy Spirit to search the deep things of your heart,
And bring to your attention the areas in your life where you
need to be obedient to God’s word.
Maybe right now you know an area that needs to be brought to God and redeemed.
An area of your life where you want to obey.
Bring that to God,
And start working on that one thing.
Better to do one small step of obedience than nothing at
all.
Because it is by those small steps of obedience that you become the person God
created you to be.