Getting your bearing

GETTING YOUR BEARINGS. 
To be able to go in a direction that will make us sure that we reach the goal or destination we are meant to arrive at in life we need to know the answer to three questions; Who am I? What is happening to me? And What am I meant to do?
We need to know who we are so that we can understand what is happening to us, and we need to know what is happening to us so that we can know what we are meant to do.

Who am I?   In other words –How do you see yourself? If you weren’t sure you could look in a mirror and see your reflection! You see an image. But to know who we are in our inner self we have to get in touch with the self image we have of ourselves – reflected back to us by the ideas of other people that have shaped us and formed us.… we don’t do self-analysis as child – work out how to maximise our potential for a great future. We take on board what we are told we are – the positive - approved, encouraged, loved unconditionally -  or negative - criticised, discouraged or ignored, and we end up with a positive or negative self image, mostly a muddle of both. Some people cope with the negative feedback better than others and hurt feelings and woundedness is experienced by everybody and that can stay with us -  BUT God has made provision through The Holy Spirit for us to be healed from all the pain of that harm we do to one another in our lives.
The one big and amazing truth that sets us free from that confusion and pain is the understanding of the wonder of  what God’s idea is of who we are - created in God’s image and likeness.
Genesis 1:26…Let us make man and woman in our own image (selem) and likeness (demut)…
Genesis 1:27… And God made man and woman in his own image…
The complete plan of God for humanity was to become not just the image, shadow, but to also become the likeness, substance, reality.
Three times in the New Testament it is said that the Old testament Law and Commandments were a shadow of the things to come, because the Substance, or reality was of Christ. (Colossians 8, Hebrews 8, Hebrews 10)

In the Old Testament God gave Israel the Law and the Commandments and these things were  a shadow of  his love and wisdom and goodness and mercy to them that allowed them to pursue and find a knowledge of God and to aspire to live in and as the shadow of the nature of God. Many had a heart to pursue this knowledge of God and many did not. Those that did were blessed and those who did not brought sorrow and grief into their own souls. David saw himself as the apple of God’s eye – a very positive self image from a very merciful and forgiving God. He had that heart after God.

When Jesus came he planted into humanity the greater and even more amazing idea of who we were – not just made in the image of God, but being transformed into the likeness of God. In Jesus, God had joined himself to his own creation in one person, born from above by the Holy Spirit. And we became born of that seed also when Jesus planted himself as that seed into the earth after He died on the cross and rose again. And that seed brought forth us, as the fruit of a new creation upon the earth – not just the image but the likeness of God. 2Cor 5.17 says that; In Christ we are a new creation…and that we are joined in one Spirit with The Lord (1Corinthians 6:17), chosen in him before the foundation of the world, designated beforehand to be placed as sons and daughters in his family through Jesus Christ, (Ephesians 1:4) So that we can say; Galatians 2:20… It is no longer I that live, but Christ is living in me… THAT IS WHO HE SAYS WE ARE!

What is happening to me?
There is the good and the bad that happens to us, that this world brings into our natural lives.
AND
There is an absolute and ultimate good that happens to us as God brings His love into our spiritual lives that transforms us into that person that God created us to be.
I am being loved by God. His delight is to love us with all of his heart. Would God want to do anything else, other than to love us as his children? Anything you could think of would have to contain his love, because God is love, and that includes God’s discipline of us as his children, and allowing us to suffer through hurtful and contentious things done to us by others. The Bible says that Jesus had to suffer the contradiction of peoples’ sinful nature against himself. His love and grace is sufficient for us in all these things

That changes our perspective of what is good or bad in all the things that the world brings into our natural lives. We are living in a confused and conflicted global culture in this present time that delights to deal out spiteful and vindictive punishment, person to person, group to group exacting revenge upon each other and some wanting even to cancel out those that do not agree with their ideology. God is using ALL these things to work together for His good – his perfect strategic plan and good will for our lives.
John 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment,
But living within the delight of God’s love for us can lift us far above that kind of chaos. We can return love for hate and not fear. 

What am I meant to do?  

I am simply asked to pass this love on to others.

1John 4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

What about other things that are required of us to do that are part of living for God and with God in this life, like serving God through serving others, and living a sacrificial life instead of putting oneself first, and being obedient to God’s commands? Obeying his Commandment to love him and to love one another as he has loved us, fulfils all of our obedience to him.
All of these things are fulfilled in our living out of a life of faith that works through love. Paul tells us that this is all that really matters.
What about Jesus saying that we will be his witnesses in the earth. Being a witness means living a life that has God on display in our lives. That means his love in action in our lives.
When Jesus was being questioned by the crowd about who he was l the people who he was he said that he could bear witness of who he was and that he knew where he had come from and where he was going (John 8:14) Jesus had his bearings, and he gives us our bearings, so that we can know who we are, what is happening to us, and what to do in all situations.