Who Am I? Where Am I Going? How Do I Get There?

[HKHaugan]

Recently Matt Damon was in a movie called “The Bourne Identity” in which he played a secret operative named Jason Bourne, found by some fishermen adrift, half dead and unconscious in the ocean. He awoke an amnesiac. He started a tortuous trek to discover who, why and what he was. He found himself completely alone and a target of unseen and unknown forces trying to kill him and he didn’t know why. As he went along he discovered he had the drive to survive and the skill to climb the hill. And of course, as movies go, he met a love he trusted, who helped him along the way and with whom he finally ends up at the end. What he found was that he needed something and someone outside himself who could help him discover who he was and why and it had to be personal, larger and more comprehensive than himself.

There is a real parallel here. If you think about our individual lives and how they began, we came into this world with no prior consciousness of identity, struggling to breathe, totally dependent on outside help, looking for who and why we are here. We are invisible beings living in a visible body trying to find an identity, a meaning and a purpose. We are alone, fearful and moving every moment to find out the way to fill those needs in us. All of this internal maneuvering is invisible and tells us something. We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.......we are spiritual beings having a human experience. While we live in a physical body one hundred percent of the way we use that body is determined by thinking, evaluating, trusting and decision, all of which are invisible. The way is dependent on who, what and how we choose to operate.

Not only is it the way but a further ingredient in the invisible called faith. The search is the hill and the skill is the right choices we make and act upon as we go from day to day. But, and here is the real question, who do we trust that is sufficient enough to follow to walk through the invisible dimension? Who is ultimately right about life, eternally, absolutely right about life? And what do we trust that the who offers as a guide to understand the how we live out our responses? There are all kinds of answers out in the world from self appointed experts to religious exploiters whose attempts are to get your attention to follow them.

There is only one who is ultimately true and not some human being who became enlightened. He was and is the light. Jesus came as the source of truth from before all of Creation by the Spirit of Truth, God the Holy Spirit. He lived faith, died in faith and rose from the dead to prove the fact of faith in Him. God came in the flesh of Jesus to be that incorruptible, errorless, sinless person whose resurrection from the dead sealed the revelation of eternal perfection and life. It is faith in Him that sets our minds, our hearts and our spirits not on mere survival in this world but on Him. He sets the spiritual priority of thinking, evaluating, deciding and acting spiritually through Him and the Word He has given us. He gives us an identity as an image of God, our meaning to grow relationally in Him, and a purpose to serve Him. Because of who He is and what He has done you can trust Him anytime and anywhere. His life is the life we are given when we trust Him, believe Him and act in faith for Him.

What Jesus has done is to reveal a number of things to us:

First, He reveals there are two dimensions, the seen and the unseen, the physical and spiritual.

Second, the spiritual predates the physical. As God the Son He reveals God the Father is the source of everything. Therefore everything we see in the physical dimension was conceived in the spiritual mind of God and put into physical being by the Spirit of God through the Son of God. Before there was a physical universe God is.

Third, He reveals mankind is created in the spiritual image of God. Human identity is founded in God’s concept of Himself, I Am. Every human being is an image of the spiritual I AM.

Fourth, He reveals Scripture is God’s Word given to explain who He is, why we exist, the plan of salvation and how He will accomplish the entire program.

Fifth, Scripture reveals humanity is fallen, alone, wounded and drifting as a result of Adam and Eve rebelling against God and blocking out the Spirit of God who connects us with God.

Sixth, Jesus has exposed the enemy of mankind and his residence, the devil and hell. The devil is a spiritual force working to wound, isolate and alienate mankind from God. He is the source of all negative movement against God and man.

Seventh, Jesus has come to restore man to God, undo the devil’s work, show that faith in God as He has been revealed in Jesus is the cure, the means and the method of the restoration by the power of the Holy Spirit. Having a faith relationship with Jesus brings us into an eternal perspective that makes the temporary world a better place to live.

Eighth, He has established the Body of Christ as the spiritual family to enable the process of restoration through worship, discipleship, ministry and mission.

That’s it in a nutshell. This is the message we have been given. It is a spiritual message of real hope, not political, economic or psychological hope, but real hope and Jesus gives us the key to reality, which is ultimately spiritual. That is, He reveals the truth about existence and how we can manage it led by His Spirit. “Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free [here I add, denominational, corporate, ethnic, tribal, club and all secular identities]—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive (1Cor.12:12-13 The Message Bible).” Of course the larger is the spiritual context of God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with His Word as our guide.

To get the feel for all this read Luke 10:25-37; ponder it, let the Spirit guide your heart.