Unbelief or misunderstanding are the only things that could keep our heart down, because this message is good news, good tidings of great joy! It’s not that you’re trying to be joyful; when you understand the good tidings, your heart is overwhelmed! You can prove whether or not we see the great tidings by our disposition in the Body of Christ. A lot of Christians have let the world sneak in and speak louder than the good news. We’ve made it all about God FOR us instead of God in us and through us…
You’re made in His image. We need to be talking His language.
So why did I talk about Jesus being beat beyond description (see Part IV)? Because there’s a parallel. When sin came in the garden of Eden, man lost his appearance, and didn’t look anything like who he was created to be. So Jesus came and lost His appearance and became disfigured as we were so that we could get our rightful identity back: sons before the throne! Jesus got beaten beyond description because your identity was beaten beyond description by sin.
Know on your darkest day that love never lost sight of you; love never fails.
God loves you. He knows your potential and created value. So when you’re living where sin abounds, grace abounds even more; not because God is an enabler, but because He wants to transform.
Come on, mercy triumphs over judgment not because He is an enabler, but because He wants you redeemed! This is how mercy triumphs: on your darkest day of sin, God goes, “That’s not who you are. You are SO much more! I know who you are!” And Jesus is saying, “Forgive them, Father; they really don’t know what they are doing. Because if they really saw, they wouldn’t be living that way. If they really understood, they wouldn’t be the way they are, so forgive them, Father.”
And God just shows mercy, let’s you wake up another day, and another day, and another day, giving you mercy in hopes that you’ll look more like Him. Get it? [Big grin] It’s not hard to understand once you really see the Scriptures.
So I really DO know why God loves me so much! [Big grin] It’s because He made me like Him, and He loves who He is in me!
You know what’s cool? Now I like who I am in Him! I used to not like myself. I used to need YOU to like me because I didn’t like me. I used to live with my identity based on men, needing people to tell me good things; going out of my way to get attention, trying to do good things to get good things said about me, because I didn’t believe it was true. Come on, so many of us can relate to what I’m saying. We do some weird things!
But I honestly like myself now; I’m happy with what I see in the mirror. Do you want to know why that’s important? Because you love your neighbor as yourself: you better get a good view of you in God, or else you won’t see your neighbor clearly, and all you’ll see is what’s wrong with them and it won’t make you feel so bad about yourself.
The two greatest commandments that fulfill all of them: love God with everything you are, and love your neighbor as yourself. If you don’t let the gospel rightly identify yourself, how can you see your neighbor rightly? Wow. The greater view I have of me, the clearer view I have of you. The more free I get from me, the more free I get from you, and now I’m finally free to love you, and that’s why I’m on the planet!
[Smiling] That’s why you have no power to change what you see in me. You can only cheer me on and edify me. Iron sharpens iron. There’s no one here that can stop the momentum of the train in me – I’m here to run you over in love! I’m serious, I won’t get frustrated with you, I’ll just love you!
In fact, when you’re not looking, I’ll actually pray for you, and it won’t be because I’m mad at you; I’ll probably weep knowing that you wouldn’t live that way if you really knew who you were. And heaven will hear me praying, and heaven will come and rescue you because of love.
That sure beats “Knock them off their high horse, Lord! You need to set them straight. God, why do you let them pick on me like that?…” That is not prayer! That is a complaint session that never passes your drop ceiling. God doesn’t feel that way about them. Mercy is triumphing over judgment and grace is abounding more. So why do we think it’s cool to pray that way? Because the world taught us to feel that way.
Listen, I say this a lot; the Lord gave me this, and it’s really convicting. He said, “Dan, if you squeeze an orange, you expect orange juice. If apple juice filled the cup, it would be weird. Why isn’t it weird when you squeeze My people and everything BUT Christ comes out? That should be really weird. So preach that way.”
Come on, you know the Scripture: figs and thistles, know a tree by it’s fruit? Do you know what we do? We get all condemned when we hear that preached. Jesus is not even talking about fruit: He’s talking about tree. Jesus is saying, “If you know who you are, your fruit will follow. If you don’t know who you are, your fruit will follow. So make a tree good – know who you are – so the fruit will be good.”
We hear judgment. We hear, “A good tree can’t bear bad fruit” and we think, “Oh my God, I have to be a bad tree!” because we know the bad fruit we’ve produced. That’s not what He’s saying.
He’s saying, “If you make a tree good, the fruit will be good. If you teach people who they are, their life will show it.” And all of a sudden, I’m in the freedom of grace! I’m not working and laboring to produce good fruit; are you kidding me?
You ask, “How can you walk in righteousness?”
Because I’m a righteous tree, a planting of the Lord! I’ve been made righteous in His sight, so righteousness is what I do, it’s who I am! Isn’t that awesome! I can be righteous because I’ve been made righteous! I’m not trying to earn or prove it. I’m enjoying it! I’m accepting it!
I can show you in Colossians 1 where you’re holy, blameless, and above reproach in the sight of God through the death of Jesus Christ, and that you’ll remain that way if indeed you continue in the faith and don’t let anything change your mind [vv. 22-23].
So if you stay there, guess what your fruit will start looking like? Holy, blameless, and above reproach! And then guess what? You’ll have this unveiled face and you’ll feel like you’re one with Him and you’ll have intimacy with Him and you won’t be ashamed.
You’re the bride, not the concubine. The concubine of the Old Testament serves the king and gets called into his chamber once in a while. That’s how a lot of Christians live. That shouldn’t be your Christian testimony, living from encounter to encounter and serving in between!
You’re called to be the bride! You’re privileged to know Him! He calls you friend, and He lives inside of you. Amen.
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That was the fifth part of a series of my partial transcript/excerpts of a two hour-long video of Dan Mohler posted on YouTube entitled “Being Transformed into the Image of Jesus Christ, Part 1 of 4″ – modified somewhat for readability (segment 55:40 – 1:07:15).
Now, having apprehended Dan’s messages to date, let’s revisit some of those verses in John’s first epistle that used to make us uncomfortable, and see them in a new light! Are you ready?! Prepare yourselves to behold great truth!
We’ll start with 1 John 3:6. No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or known Him. Do you see it? As you press into Him in the secret place, you know Him and live in Him. He transforms you. Because you have made yourself available to Him, God Himself keeps you from sinning!
Now look at 1 John 3:8b-9. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning because they have been born of God. We know from the parable of the seed and the sower that the word of God is the seed (see Luke 8:11). As we grow in intimacy with Him, the seed-word transforms us into His image, and we cannot go on sinning. Isn’t that awesome! The veil is removed as we look to the Lord (see 2 Cor. 3:14)!
Now look at 1 John 3:14 and 16. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death…. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. Hallelujah! Transformed into His image, we walk it out and love others naturally, without effort, just as Jesus did!
Lastly, look at 1 John 4:15-18a. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete in us so that we will have confidence in the day of judgment: in this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.
Wow! As Dan would ask, do you get it?! If not, get alone with the Lord and ask Him to open it up to you. Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you (Matt. 7:7).
Praise God with me, dear brothers and sisters! We have been delivered from darkness into His glorious light (see Colossians 1:13)! We now SEE! As Jesus is in this world, now so are we: holy, righteous, above reproach! Hallelujah!
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor…. to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. – (Isaiah 61:1a, 3)
Rejoicing with you in this glory of Christ within us, your sister deanna
The Lord Is With Us 