"I'm Not Who You Think I Am" - God
If there is one main “theme” I feel the Holy Spirit stressing so strongly right now, not only in my own ministry, but overall… it’s that of God wanting to share His heart with the world. His true heart.
Not just with unbelievers who don’t know Him. But, also with believers who think they know Him.
Over the hundreds of years and throughout the hundreds of generations that have passed, the pure message of the Gospel and the true character of God have gotten lost. The spirit of religion and the lies of man-based doctrine have left believers powerless, confused and with an incorrect picture of their Father in Heaven.
But, now is the time when God is opening closed eyes and freeing closed minds. He is reminding His people who He really is and introducing His true character to those that don’t know Him.
Because the truth is - He is not who we’ve thought He is.
God in the Garden
From the very beginning of creation, all the way back in the Garden of Eden, God has been about love. Not anger.
And, right here is where the misunderstandings about God (brought on by religion and man) started too - in the Garden.
First, there’s the oldest trick in the book (literally) that the devil pulls on Adam and Eve. God had told them “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:16).
God was giving them freedom and abundance. He said they could freely eat of every tree. And was only warning them not to eat from the one tree because it would harm them. He knew once they ate of it, their eyes would be opened and they would know sin. Their perfect state of not knowing good and evil and not being in self-consciousness would be broken. And therefore, they would be susceptible to sin and therefore, death. He was protecting them.
But, the devil did what he does best - deceives. And twisted God’s words to make it sound like He was holding out on them. That He was actually not for them and instead, was keeping something good from them. He got them to question God’s character and abandon everything they knew about His goodness, His love and His generosity.
But, this was just the beginning.
In the very next chapter of Genesis, after God finds out what Adam and Eve have done, He sends them out of the Garden. Keyword there is send. Other variations of the original Hebrew word are to “send out,” “send forth,” “send away” or even, “let go” or “set free.” Yet, this has often been interpreted or taught as God “banishing” them from the Garden.
And what is implied in the word banish? Punishment, harshness, anger. In fact, the definition of that word is to “send someone away as an official punishment” or to “forbid, abolish or get rid of something unwanted.” So, you can see the choice of words here and the way this is presented is very important.
When you tell this story as God banishing Adam and Eve, He appears angry. Disgusted. Annoyed. He wants nothing to do with them anymore, so He sends them away as a form of punishment. (Think about it… is this how you were “taught” this part of Scripture?)
Except, if you put that in the bigger context of who the Bible says God is, it doesn’t line up. His agape love for man is patient, kind, not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, always hopes and always perseveres (1 Corinthians 13). He loves the world SO much that He sent His only son to die on the hope that we might receive Him. Yet, He gets so angry by one mistake that He’s done with Adam and Eve just like that?
Well, the answer is right there in the Scripture. If you actually read it in the Spirit and not rely on man-based teaching. In Genesis 3:22, God says Adam and Eve have now become like them (God, Jesus and the other Heavenly Hosts) and know good and evil. So now, if they were to eat of the tree of life (and live forever), they would live in a state of perpetual sin that they were never intended to live in.
So, instead of allowing that to happen, He sends them out of the Garden to protect them. He even went as far as to put a flaming sword over the tree of life, so they couldn’t eat from it and live forever in their fallen state.
God was protecting His children, not punishing them. He already had a plan for their redemption that would take place outside of the Garden. But, He had to send them out to keep them safe. The perfection and freedom in their eternal life with Him had been compromised, so He had to protect it. And them.
God’s Conviction
When God convicts us on something, again… it is to protect us. He is not an angry God just waiting for us to mess up, so He can punish us. It is quite the opposite. God convicts us to keep us from harm. It is out of love and protection, not anger.
The analogy He gave me is that of a parent who sees their child running out into the road. In that moment, the parent would yell. They would sound angry and mean. Their voice would probably be loud and their words sharp. But, it wouldn’t be because they are mean or angry. It would be because the parent (who knows more than the child) is protecting them. They know the danger and don’t want the child to get harmed or killed. So, they don’t mess around. They yell to the child, “Get back over here!” But, as soon as the child does come back, what do they do? Immediately scoop them up in their arms and hug them because they love them and are happy they are safe.
And, the same is true with God. He loves you. He is for you. So, He convicts you not to punish you or because He just wants His way. He knows more than you and He knows what things can harm (or possibly kill you), so He corrects and convicts to keep you safe.
Which is also why He wants us to obey Him. He wants us to obey Him because we trust Him and believe He wants the best for us. Not because we think He’ll strike us down at any moment with a lightning bolt if we don’t.
As usual, the Holy Spirit broke it down to me so simply one day…
“God wants us to love Him, so we fear Him. Not fear Him, so we love Him.”
Meaning, God wants us to be so in love with Him that we want to “fear” (obey) Him. The same way a child wants to obey their parent or a spouse wants to honor their mate because they love them. Yet, unfortunately, God is often presented to people in the opposite way.
“Fear God! Be afraid! He hates what you’re doing and you’re going to hell!”
I’m sorry, but if that’s how you’re presenting God, you don’t know His heart.
If God so loved the world (the whole world… not just the “good” people.) that He sent His own Son to die for their sins, just so they could have a way back to Him… does that sound like a scary, angry dictator?
And if you didn’t know God and were presented Him in such a way, would you have any idea that He is loving? Would you have any notion that He is actually for you? And won’t give up on you?
This is what happens when people who don’t truly know God’s heart try to go out and share Him with others. It doesn’t work because you can’t share something you don’t truly have yourself.
You have to know God to be able to know His love. And you have to know His love to be able to share His love.
And, God’s love and kindness is what leads people to repentance (Romans 2:4). Because He is the only One that can actually transform us and create lasting change by the power of His Holy Spirit.
God’s Love
God’s love is not the same as man’s. So, any attempt to understand from a human point of view will fail. And this is why SO many people misunderstand God’s love and grace and aren’t able to fully accept it because they’re thinking in man’s terms.
God’s love is agape love. It is a love that is outside of emotions, feelings and circumstances. It is the love that 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 describes:
Love is patient
Love is kind
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others
It is not self-seeking
It is not easily angered
It keeps no record of wrongs
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Reading that list, it is pretty much the opposite of how we as humans give and receive love! In our ways, we can get impatient and easily angered. We can keep a record of how we’ve been wronged and use it against others. We can focus on our own needs and if we don’t feel they’re being met anymore, we’ll give up hope and decide not to persevere.
But, God’s agape love is a choice. Plain and simple. It is not about how He feels or what we do to earn it or deserve it. He loves us because that’s who HE is. Period.
Which is exactly why He sent His son to die for our sins on the off-chance that we would believe it and accept Him. And why Jesus was able to truly mean it when He looked right at the people who were literally killing Him and say, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”
It’s because He loves us with a love that stands outside of our behavior. But, if you’ve been wrapped up in religion and man-based doctrine, that is probably a hard statement for you to wrap your brain around.
You’ve been taught your whole life that it’s about you, when in actuality, it is all about HIM.
And this is where grace comes in…
God’s Grace
God knows you will sin. He expects it. He knows you will mess up. He expects it. He knows you will fail. He expects it.
Again, this is not what man-based doctrine teaches. Which is exactly why the Holy Spirit is bringing the TRUTH back to His Church at this time.
If it were still all about you and what you do… how well you perform, how well you can be like Christ, how “good” you can behave, how much you can “not sin,” then what did Jesus die for? If it were still about you, then we would still be under the law. That is what it was for - to give us guidelines and regulations to uphold.
But, God did that on purpose to show us that we can’t earn it on our own. (Read the Book of Galatians) No matter how hard we try! We can’t do it. It’s literally not possible in our flesh. So, those people who think they can live a sin-free life simply because they choose to, have already been “bewitched” or deceived (Galatians 3:1) because the Bible tells us there is not a single man on earth who continually does good and never sins (Ecclesiastes 7:20). And that we are all infected and impure with sin and our righteous deeds are nothing but filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). Sorry to burst your bubble, religious folks!
That means even on your best day, you are still a filthy sinner in comparison to the holiness of God. So, you cannot… I repeat, you CANNOT earn your way into God’s grace. You cannot be good enough, do good enough, obey well enough, trust enough, be faithful enough, be bold enough, follow enough, desire enough or please enough. You can’t do it.
And the good news is… you don’t have to.
That is the good news of Jesus Christ! God sent Jesus because He knows you will sin. Your sinful human nature literally wants to do evil and the opposite of what the Spirit wants (Galatians 5:17). Think about it… do you have to teach a baby to be bad? Or good?
But, when He sent Jesus, He gave us a way out. He sent us a rescue from our selves. He gave us a way to be made right with Him and to receive His love, blessings and salvation without having to earn it. All we have to do is believe it and receive it.
But, that’s not as easy as it sounds. Because the enemy, the world and your own flesh will try to convince you to do the opposite. Which is why Paul spends most of Galatians explaining this to the people and warning them about receiving Christ as their Savior and then falling back into a works-based mentality. He warns that false teachers (and man-based, religious doctrine) will try to make it about their behavior again. But, they need to make a conscious effort to stay free.
Because that is what God actually wants - for His children to be free. It’s what He’s always wanted. It was His original design in the Garden of Eden and it’s what He sent His son, Jesus, to restore.
God’s Way
God has never wanted His children to be wrapped up in slavery and striving.
That is man’s way!
But, God doesn’t want us to be wrapped up in suffering OR in works. And this is again, where the enemy and false doctrine have come in and twisted God’s character so people don’t know His true heart anymore.
Having been wrapped up in religion for many years myself, I had a first-hand experience with this. Even though I didn’t realize it consciously at the time, I had some deep-down beliefs that God wanted us to suffer. Or at the very least, that we were supposed to suffer to “please” Him.
So, that of course, manifested itself in my life. To the point where I was so exhausted of not wanting what God “wanted” from me, that I practically had a meltdown one day. And that’s when I heard the Holy Spirit say clear as day, “YOUR way is suffering. MY way is blessing!” And just like that, the scales came off my eyes.
Here, I had been believing what I had always been outright taught or at the very least insinuated - that we were supposed to suck it up and be miserable “for” God. And here He was, telling me that’s not what He wanted after all.
It was a breakthrough moment to say the least.
He had to remind me (in my spirit, past all the flesh-programming) that He is good. He is faithful. He is loving. He is for me. He loves me. He wants good things for His children.
And just like no earthly father would “want” his child to suffer, why would we put that on Him like He does? When we know that God’s love is far greater than the love of man in our sinful state? (Matthew 7:11) In fact, when we believe false doctrine that tells us that God wants us to suffer in sickness, it contradicts Him as the healer. And when we believe false doctrine that tells us He wants us to stay in lack and poverty, it contradicts Him as the provider.
Not only does it outright go against who He tells us He is in Scripture, but it also makes Him inconsistent, unpredictable and untrustworthy. If it was a “maybe He’ll heal you, maybe He won’t” or a “maybe He’ll provide, maybe He won’t” situation, then we couldn’t ever pray with real expectation or truly believe. Because we’d have nothing solid to believe in!
Again, it’s because we’ve tried to put God into terms we understand. We’ve tried to bring Him down to the ways man operates or give ourselves an explanation for something that makes sense through human reasoning. Yet, that’s not the way things work with God.
God is not a man that He should lie and He is not a human being that He should change His mind (Numbers 23:19). God’s intention for us is exactly what He tells us - an abundant and full life (John 10:10). Yet, it is many of God’s own people - believers, Christians - who are the first to debate this. They will be the first ones to declare that God doesn’t want us to be prosperous, healthy and successful.
If that were the case, then that would mean that He wants (or is at the very least, is okay with) us to miserable. To go without, to be sick and to suffer.
So, which one is it? Both can’t be true. God is not a God of confusion and He does not change. So, is He good and loving and wants abundant life for His children? Or does He want them to suffer?
Unfortunately, so many believers have been SO deceived by this false doctrine and inaccurate representation of God that they’ve never even stopped to break it down and consider it this simply. They’ve never stopped long enough to consider what they truly believe and know about the character and heart of God.
How can He be for you (Romans 8:31) and yet “want” you to be miserable too?
It doesn’t work. And that’s why it hasn’t worked for so long now. That’s why the Church is barely distinguishable from the world these days because they’ve lost sight of who their Father truly is and who they truly are in Him.
It’s why believers have found themselves trapped in contradictions between what the Word says about God and what they’re experiencing in their own lives. Because religion, false teachers and works-based doctrine have changed so much about who God is, that His own children aren’t even sure what to believe anymore.
But, God is done with that. He is coming for His lost sheep and He is restoring them to the truth. To His true heart. His true love and grace. And the freedom of the true Gospel.
The freedom that comes from knowing… really knowing… that there is a God in Heaven that LOVES you. That is FOR you. That has blessing and abundance and grace that does not end. And that you don’t have to earn it or work to keep it.
But, you do have to believe.
You do have to turn from the lies, the false beliefs and the works of your own flesh. And, you do have to surrender to the truth that it is not about you at all.
God’s love is about who HE is. His blessings and faithfulness are about Him, not you.
Which is actually great news! Because it brings us back to the original design that God first had all the way back in the Garden before we believed that very first lie - that God was against us. Before we turned our eyes away from Him and began looking at ourselves. And have never felt worthy ever since.
It’s time to take our eyes off ourselves and put them back on Him.
It’s time to remember who He is.
It’s time to remember His love.
It’s time to receive His love, His grace and His blessing.
It’s time to remember.
Ask Him to help you remember.
Let Him help you.
This is who He really is.
And this is who you really are.
A beloved child of God.
