Your True Kingdom Self - Part 1
After praying for hundreds of people to be emotionally healed and spiritually delivered, I have found each person has, at the core of who they are, a self – call it an identity – that is unique – their true identity, the ‘real’ them -- given to them as an inheritance by their Creator. Some call the Creator God, others call Him Yahweh, some call Him Jehovah. Whatever you call Him, He is the one that made you and you are His. He is light, there is no darkness in Him. The Psalms tell us God is good. For example, “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His steadfast love endures forever” (Psalm 107: 1). He called all of creation ‘good’ (Genesis 1: 31); everything He makes is ‘good’, including you.
God made you. Your true self, your original ‘you’, fashioned by God from before the beginning of time, waiting for you to make your debut in this world, is filled with light, joy and peace. This person, this ‘you’, was made to live in intimate fellowship with God as you dwell with Him in His Kingdom, which the Bible calls the Kingdom of God.
Do you know this? More incredibly, do you know that you were made by Him in His image? Do you know that all human beings who have ever lived, who live today, and who will ever live are made in God’s image. How do I know this is true? The Bible tells me so:
“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1: 27).
Another way to say this is we – you and I – were created by God to carry His image into the world. We are God’s image bearers. We were created to reflect into the world the majesty, beauty, power, and love of our Creator. If we do this well, we show God to the world well – we show them life; if we do not, our lives will show the world what death looks like. And if we are His image bearers, we are also His glory bearers. Fortunately, we don’t have to do this in our own power – good thing too, because it would be impossible. We are spiritually dependent upon God. But Scripture tells us that we have the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit dwelling within us to help. To spread the light, we have to be facing the Light; we have to be filled with the Light.
That is, if we belong to Jesus. Because this is a fallen world and that fall, which affects the whole world, separated us from Father God.
My point is this – God made you and He made you perfect without sin, depression, despair, fear, anxiety, addictions, anger, unforgiveness, and overall brokenness. And that perfect person is in there, in you, somewhere. Ok, I know. We will never be perfect until we are with Jesus in the next life. But still, God made you in His image, and that image of Him is in you. As we journey through life, with the help and the power of Jesus working in us, for those who believe, we can grow more and more like that person God created – your True Kingdom Self. In Christ, we can become who we really are – we are that person, we are becoming that person, we will be that person.
Paul tells us the truth when he writes:
“For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as sons in Christ Jesus in accordance with His pleasure and will” (Ephesians 1: 4, 5).
And:
“For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him . . . and in Him all things hold together . . . But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation – if you continue in your faith” (Colossians 1: 16, 17, 22, 23 NIV).
The Passion Translation translates Colossians 1: 21 – 23 this way:
“Even though you were once distant from Him, living in the shadows of your evil thoughts and actions, He reconnected you back to Himself. He released His supernatural peace to you through the sacrifice of His own body as the sin-payment on your behalf so that you would dwell in His presence. And now there is nothing between you and Father God, for He sees you as holy, flawless, and restored, if indeed you continue to advance in faith, assured of a firm foundation to grow upon”.
God reconnected Himself to us through Christ’ death on the cross. He died for you and me so that our true Kingdom self could be exposed for us and the world to see – His original creation. Because of Jesus’ death, there is now nothing between you (and me) and our Father, God. Now He sees us – holy and flawless. He sees the real you because all the corruption of sin and evil that the world covers us with has been removed, or is in the process of being removed. All thanks to Jesus.
I like what Paul says: we are restored! What does that mean? To restore is to bring back to an original purpose, function, or condition. For example, to restore to health is to heal. Jesus restored me back to my original, true Kingdom self. Through Jesus’ death on my behalf God made it possible for me, with His help and power, to reclaim my original Kingdom self. It is as if He gave me a gift – the gift of my original condition and purpose. It is Jesus telling me – “Here, look at you. Maybe for the first time. This is who you really are. You are not an addict, depressed, tired and lonely. You are not a loser, beaten down, far from home without friends. You are not “a little bit of nothing”.
“You are my creation. The person I made to carry my image and glory is wonderful, beautiful, powerful. You are filled with my grace and glory. You are my glorious creation, you are infinitely valuable, you have purpose and significance. I love you, my child, my treasured possession”.
That is who we really are. Each of us, of course, is unique. Each manifests these God-given attributes in different ways. But every person is made in God’s image – all of us. Every person, no matter their ethnic, racial, cultural, or national background – even the unborn – have this beauty and dignity embedded within them. Christians treat (or are supposed to treat) every person, every human being, as incredibly valuable and significant precisely because each person is God’s image bearer. Men, women, children, even the unborn; the elderly, poor, homeless, all races and nationalities, the sick, the terminally ill, the mentally challenged – every human being has value and dignity according to the Bible, which is the word of God. This belief is the foundation for all civil and human rights. Human rights and the dignity of every human being is rooted in the idea of the Imago Dei; the image of God.
But what about a secular society, as America is rapidly becoming? How is human value assigned in a society that does not believe in God, the Bible, or the Imago Dei? In a secular society, value is assigned according to what Marxist idealogues and others in the Left (and too many Christians) call ‘capacity’. In other words, if you have the capacity to fulfill my wants, needs, and desires you are valuable. Most able-bodied adults have capacity. But the unborn, babies and young children, the elderly, the mentally challenged, the homeless, poor, and sick do not, according to the philosophy of ‘capacity’. Nor do those who disagree with you politically and culturally. Therefore, none of these have value or have limited value, and no significance according to this way of viewing the world. Does this idea horrify you? It should. As any society turns away from Jesus Christ and embraces a secular and therefore satanic culture, the marginalized become expendable – they consume too much oxygen. It is one step away from forms of extermination – a culture ready to ‘cancel’ those without ‘capacity’. Think eugenics and Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.
So, you are made in the image of God. You have value. God sees you as holy and blameless, free from accusation, without blemish, and blameless. But there is a problem. Most of us don’t feel, think, or act in this way. Many of us are depressed, addicted, abused, sad, hurting, lonely, frustrated, lost, angry, and just plain brokenhearted. Why is there such a vast disconnect between who God created – our true Kingdom selves – and our day-to-day reality.
The answer – almost a cliché – is we live in a fallen world. Our true Kingdom selves were created to live in intimate harmony and unity with God. But sin drove a wedge between us and God and covered our true Kingdom selves with an almost impenetrable veil of self-induced selfishness, deception, pride, and darkness that prevents us from seeing ourselves as God sees us. The kingdom of the world seduces us with pleasures, false ideologies, idols, and feel-good options that take away the pain but drive us further from our true selves, both at the same time.
We cannot make ourselves good enough, we cannot reclaim, restore, or resurrect our true Kingdom selves; only God through Jesus Christ can do that. But we have a role to play. Jesus tells us we must daily make a choice – which gate will I walk through today? Will I walk through the narrow gate that leads to life and victory over darkness, a life lived as my true Kingdom self? Or will I walk through the broad gate that leads to destruction or death – the life antithetical to my true Kingdom self? Will I choose the way of the Kingdom of God – which is love and obedience to Jesus; or will I choose the way of the kingdom of the world – which is “my wants, my needs, and my desires” first and foremost? Will I repent and be repentant?
We all have a choice. This is important, because many people do not believe they have a choice. Many people believe they are only the person they see in the mirror – a person filled with regret, shame, guilt, fear, and sadness. They don’t know there is another person, their Kingdom self, buried deep in their heart, covered up by sin, but longing to be set free.
Why is there such widespread denial or misunderstanding about our true Kingdom self? I am not completely sure, but it has to do with satan. Satan is a demonic power, a supernatural person who is terrified you will discover you have a true Kingdom self. Because if we all discovered this person and revealed that person to the world around us – in effect becoming the true image bearer and glory bearer God created us to be – we would spread Jesus’ life and light wherever we went! Satan’s rule and reign over the earth would be over; or if not over, seriously diminished.
And so satan continually batters us with lies; he is the father of lies. He continually accuses us, he is the great accuser. He uses 4 lies to demoralize and accuse us, reinforced by the world’s (peoples) words and actions: “You are not good enough”, “You are powerless and helpless”, “You and your situation are hopeless”, and the Big Lie – “But you can make yourself good enough”.
Satan's purposes are simple – he came to steal joy and peace; kill life and liveliness; and destroy relationships, between us and God, us and others and even between our own spirit, soul, and body. His strategy is, “the best defense is a good offense”. If he can continually steer us toward the ‘broad gate’ he can continue to cover our heart and our true Kingdom self with layer upon layer of darkness, like a veil or pall (a pall is “a dark cloud or covering or smoke, dust, or similar matter”) as we choose to follow him.
Several years ago, Judy and I visited the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican with some friends. We were packed into that small space with hundreds of other tourists. After about 10 minutes we were ushered out to make room for the next group. That was enough time to observe something amazing. For sure, the paintings on the ceiling of the chapel painted by Michelangelo more than 500 years ago were extraordinarily beautiful. But something else caught my attention. The ceiling had just been restored. Centuries of burning candles and polluted air covered the paintings with a layer or pall of soot, grime, and dirt. Very carefully the conservators stripped away all of these layers of smoke and grime, revealing the brilliant colors originally painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling.
To emphasize the ‘before’ and ‘after’, the restorers left 2, 1-meter square, unrestored panels. The colors in the ‘before’ panels were muted, almost lifeless. After, the colors were brilliant, bright, alive. It was almost the difference between night and day. Imagine if the layers of soot and dirt had been two or three times as thick – the painted images would be almost invisible.
That is what sin does to our true Kingdom selves. God created us in Him image – to be bright, filled with light and life, reflecting His beauty and glory into the world. That person is alive within every human being! But for most, the world will never see that person. Many men and women may never see themselves that way. Sin covers and obscures the brightness and beauty of our true Kingdom selves with a pall. In part, that is what is means to be lost – to be so separated by sin from our true Kingdom selves that we drift aimlessly through life, far from our Creator and our God-created true purpose, function, and condition, with a veil of negative emotions, sin, and their effects covering our hearts.
And what, you might ask, is our true purpose, function, and condition? Check out Part 2.
John