ORIGINAL ME is about discovering why You Matter.

Does this feel real to you so far? Hang with me and I believe you will find the beginnings of some of the answers you have been chasing. Why do I say, beginnings? Because we are talking about a process that requires curiosity and patience. Maybe the answers you have been looking for have avoided you because you have been trying to answer the wrong questions. This is a type of blindness. Allow yourself permission to consider that we all have some measure of spiritual blindness.

Blind People Can’t See Clearly (Jesus came to heal this blindness.) A perspective can be so dominant (programmed) in our minds and emotions that any other perspective is invisible for us to see. After we have been warned that we have a blind spot, our minds and emotions can be confronted to consider that there are other perspectives besides the dominant one we have inherited. After we recognize the one dominant perspective that is the source of our blindness, we must not dismiss that we might have a problem. We must put all perspectives on the table and allow ourselves to be confronted by them. When we let Jesus heal us of our blindness, we can’t unsee the other perspectives that have been there the whole time waiting for us in the fullness of God in human form (Jesus). 

When Jesus confronts us, like he did Saul (Paul) on the road to Damascus, we find ourselves at a fork (Y) in the road. At this fork in the road most of us are confronted with three familiar questions we must all answer. Previously we did not see a fork in the road. We only saw a slight bending of the road in one direction. With this new recognition that there is a real fork in the road, we can now see that one fork keeps us on our current trajectory (How has that worked for us so far?). The other fork may feel uncomfortable, but the other fork will lead us to freedom and the discovery of the purpose of your creation. The fork that leads to freedom and finding out why You Matter requires us to investigate these three questions: 

• • How does God see me?
  • How do I see myself?
  • How are the first two questions related?

I am using metaphorical language to communicate the presence of these perspectives (forks in the road) in our lives. As you consider these questions know that encountering these perspectives is not a one-time experience. There is a little bit of a groundhog day effect. We keep coming to these forks in the road that are not all exactly the same. The difference is now we can recognize that the forks are there. We no longer have to remain blind to them. We can now choose between the heavy yolk or the light yolk that Jesus invites us to share with God. 

Here is another question, are you a Sinner or a Saint? Those feel like heavy words, don’t they? Who determines which we are? In the Christian world being “saved” or “not saved” feels like a heavy burden that many Christian traditions don’t see exactly the same way. Some will teach you that your salvation or damnation is predetermined. Some will teach you that if you die before you ask for forgiveness for a sin, then you will be damned to hell for eternity even if you have previously been “saved.” (Further explanation will be given on this as you continue to read.)

All of these traditions, to some degree, saddle their followers with a heavy “salvation” burden that Jesus says we can choose not to carry. You can kinda see what I’m talking about in this video. In my opinion, the video does a good job of raising some questions. Questions that might threaten some perspectives we have inherited.

Watch this short video (10:32) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSQz4SrvSck

Has Jesus always been your Lord, or did he become your Lord when you said a prayer?

Answer:

– Yes, from God(F,S,S)’s perspective God always has been and always will be our Lord.
– No, from our perspective we think God becomes our Lord when we ask God to.

Jesus doesn’t become our Lord, Master, Savior, Healer, Friend when we recognize that the fullness of God(F,S,S) in human form is Jesus. We change as a result of recognizing and experiencing that Jesus already IS (I AM) from before the foundations of this world. It is not God(F,S,S) that is changed by Jesus’ sacrifice, it is us. God(F,S,S) did not sacrifice Jesus on the cross, we did. 

I present to you that the freedom of Jesus’ light yolk (Matthew 11:30) is found in understanding how God sees us. How we see ourselves and others is shaped by how we believe God sees us. The gospel (good news) that many of us have been taught is that there is some darkness in the Omnipresent God because God can’t stand to be in the presence of our sin, and that God’s justice required Jesus to fix that problem for us. Jesus certainly fixed our problem, but God needing a fix for “not being able to be present with us in our sin” is an insult to the Relationship of God(F,S,S). Neither does this religious dogma make sense in light of Scripture. (We have been taught that Jesus saved us from the part of God that requires retribution. In the video Brandon addressed some of these perspectives. Jesus is our Mercy Seat (Covering). God does not need appeasement. Further explanation will be given on this as you continue to read.)

The light yolk, or the GOSPEL (Good News) is that Jesus came to heal us of our blindness to how God sees us, how God created us to be! Jesus “paid” the price of our sin. Jesus died to heal us of the consequences of our sin (missing the mark of who God created us to be), NOT for our sins, as in some type of payment to pay off the Mr. Hyde side of God (as in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). Contrary to some traditional interpretations of Scripture, God does not have a Mr. Hyde side. This type of belief about God has pagan roots/influences. 

Why did Jesus die on the Cross? Was it for our sin, or is that just a bad translation? Sin has no power over God(F,S,S). God has no kryptonite. Our sin cannot be more powerful than God. Jesus died for us, not for our sin. Jesus values us, not our sin. Then what price was paid? Keep reading!

God(F,S,S) keeps no records of wrong. Yet our names are listed in the book of life. So which is it? Jesus is the book of life. Jesus is not keeping score because our sin has no power over God. In Jesus we have life!

What I’ve been referring to as perspectives are really groups of perspectives.

In contrast, they look something like this:

• • God’s nature is retribution vs. God’s nature is not retribution
  • God is not completely good vs. God is completely good
  • God has a dark side vs. God is all light
  • God can’t be in the presence of sin vs. God is omnipresent
  • Our sin has power over God vs. Our sin has no power over God
  • Our sin separated God the Father from Jesus vs. God(F,S,S) has never been separated
  • English versions of the Bible are perfect vs. God’s message to us was intended to come through imperfect humans in contrast to Jesus (the fullness of God in human form)
  • Stories in the Bible with people describing God’s nature are all 100% true about God’s character/nature vs. people in the Bible telling their flawed understanding of God (Job’s friends, Jephthah, etc…) were given to us for a reason but were not endorsements of those people’s views of God. The Apostles constantly got God wrong and they were living with Jesus.
  • Scripture presented to us as THE WORD of GOD vs. Sacred Scripture as The Word about Jesus (the WORD/LOGOS of GOD) and stories of our confusion about God.
  • …I could continue with the two categories of contrasting perspectives.

We all must choose to recognize that the contrast is present and then judge what Scripture is confronting us with instead of holding onto the paganized/religious/retributive perspectives that have infiltrated what most all of us have been taught about God and ourselves. Jesus came to heal us of this blindness about God and ourselves!

Jesus invites ALL of us to participate in experiencing the metanoia of his light yolk. You might be asking, what is Metanoia? If this is an unfamiliar Greek word, see the discussion about what it means to metanoia on the Key Page – see #4

Most Christian teachers typically use the word “repent,” but its use doesn’t quite mean the same as the original word metanoia. What does it mean for me to metanoia, and why does it matter? Metanoia is about turning back toward who God has always created/intended for us to be. It’s about changing our minds and refusing to believe what is not true about us despite our experiences in this world. This world tries to tell us who we are not. God tells us who we are. God gives each one of us the freedom to decide what we are metanoia-ing from and who (the identity) we are metanoia-ing toward. This is a process that involves the willful participation of both our minds and emotions.

Metanoia matters because YOU MATTER to God… You are invited to believe in yourself as God believes in you. You are unique. There is only one of you. There has never been another you, and there will never be another you. Only you can give the gifts you were created to give to the people that only you can touch in any given moment. 

YOU MATTER because you are an ORIGINAL (unique, one & only) gift from God to the Relationship of God(F,S,S)! What do I mean by a gift from God to God. To understand that thought let’s look at defining who God is.

Our image of God (how we see God) determines who we believe God created us to be. If our perspective of God doesn’t reflect who God really is, then who we think we are will reflect who we are not. 

God(F,S,S)’s nature, is it Contract or Covenant?

God makes a unilateral, unconditional covenant with Abraham – found in Genesis 12:1–3. The ceremony recorded in Genesis 15 indicates the unconditional nature of the covenant. This foreshadows Jesus making a unilateral, unconditional covenant with all of humankind. Yes, God put Abraham to sleep and passed through the blood and both sides of the sacrificed carcasses. It was just God, not Abraham. God agreed to take the consequences of Abraham breaking the covenant. https://www.gotquestions.org/Abrahamic-covenant.html 

I highly encourage you to dive into this perspective of the difference between God’s nature – meaning what it really is versus what many of us have been taught. God’s nature is covenant, not contract. I encourage you to walk through this series on that topic with John Crowder.

Contract or Covenant – https://youtu.be/qismwH33XeI?si=unT5Ry6beipGSef7Contract versus Covenant – 

As you revisit your concepts of what/who you understand God’s nature to be, consider your value to God in that God declares you as God’s dwelling place (temple, sukkah, home). God’s perspective of heaven is you. You are God’s designated and desired home! The most basic nature of what we understand heaven to be is being with God or living in God’s presence. God’s sovereign design declares that you are God’s version of “heaven.” In this sense, you are God’s gift, God’s home… this means YOU MATTER to God. You are sovereignly designed to matter.

God(F,S,S) is my improper word that, in my opinion, is a more complete visual or symbolic representation describing God as the Relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the Trinitarian view of God, not the Father as God with the Son and the Spirit being secondary parts/members of God. This is my word (etymology) to describe the Trinitarian view of God. I encourage you to check this link to visit the Key Page – see #1 for more on the Trinitarian understanding of God before proceeding.

Before sharing about my Original Me story and what it has to do with your Original Me; let’s first talk about what God has already done for us. There is more to you receiving and embracing God’s invitation than just somebody like me saying, “You Matter.”

God has offered all of us an invitation to see ourselves as God sees us. God sees us as saved/adopted by God from before the foundations of this world – Eph 1:4. The invitation offered to us is not to “be saved,” but is to metanoia (change our minds, return, re-cognize, re-know) that God in Jesus has already saved us. We do not participate in “being saved,” since God(F,S,S) in Jesus has already provided our salvation. We instead are invited to participate in living out the salvation that God has already provided for all. To choose not to participate is what it means to be (remain) lost. In being lost we are not lost to God, but it is God that remains lost to us. 

Another way to think about it… has Jesus always been our Lord, or do we make Him our Lord? From God’s perspective, is God not already our “Lord” regardless of what we believe? God and our gift of salvation (healing/AtOneMent/reconciliation/redemption)… already exist without our belief. Us believing doesn’t make it so. Our belief in God and our salvation re-cognizes that God(F,S,S) has already made it so!

The invitation of our salvation is not just to know that this gift (grace) is ours and is waiting for us… this invitation is to freely choose to receive and experience (possess, own, live) this gift of salvation. Salvation is not a commodity sold and purchased on God’s heavenly stock market. Salvation is not some type of exchange that God requires a price for us to be a part of it. That is a requirement we have placed on ourselves. It is NOT a transaction in which God requires a payment from us, or Jesus. It is more of a bride’s price in which we (both the bride and the bride’s family) require God to pay (demonstrate to us who we are, because we don’t know who we are). Jesus did not save us from the Father’s “wrath.”  Jesus is the very means by which God delivers us to God’s wrath/love. Yes, God’s wrath is the same as God’s Love. Say what? Yes, they are really the same. They are only different in our human perspectives/minds. God’s Love refines us. Our false selves (the parts of us that believe the lies about who we are and who God is) are crushed/refined/destroyed by God’s Love. God’s wrath/love frees us from the bondage/slavery of the lies or delusions we believe.

Does God really have enemies? Yes and No. 

God does not have enemies from God’s perspective; the concept of enemy exists only in our human minds. God has freed us from that trap. Jesus frees us not to choose to see others as our enemies regardless of their perspective of us. 

A big part of our confusion has been created by how we think about defining who is our enemy. God has no enemies from God’s perspective. The only enemies of God exist in the minds of those who are confused. As a human, I get to choose if I have any enemies. Yet, my choice doesn’t stop other humans from seeing me as an enemy, and they may very well treat me as such. I do not have to consider someone an enemy just because they see themselves as mine. Maybe more important is my understanding that God is INFINITE and anyone/anything thinking itself to be against God is FINITE. The things (thoughts, beliefs, convictions, perspectives, feelings) that cause us to sin (miss the mark) are ultimately the finite enemy and will be destroyed/crushed/refined by the INFINITE Wrath/Love of God. So, what or who is it that God saves us from?

We require/need Jesus to change our finite minds about the INFINITE God(F,S,S). Jesus did not come to change the Father’s mind about us. Jesus came to change our minds about God. Not only does Jesus change our minds about the INFINITE God, but also about Jesus as the revelation of who God has created us to be. Jesus said we are ONE with&in the Relationship of God(F,S,S). This is what the word AtOneMent means.

“Christian” teaching often implies that God (the Father) crucified Jesus (the Son). Yet, God the Father did not. Man did. God the Father was in Jesus reconciling us to God – 2 Cor 5:19. Contrary to what most of us have been taught, the Father never abandoned Jesus on the Cross. The Father was face to face with Jesus – Psalm 22:24. It doesn’t take very long for the assertion that the infinite God(F,S,S) was separated (torn apart) by our finite sin to seem quite absurd when it is pointed out. Such a belief is central to Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) theory. There are numerous theories of AtOneMent, but PSA is the most prevalent in Western Protestantism. The idea that the Father turned His back on Jesus while on the cross is central to PSA. If that’s not what happened at the Cross, then PSA loses its strongest argument. See the following link that discusses how Scripture strongly indicates that not only did the Father NOT turn his back on Jesus, but that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have never been separated. To separate One of the Three from the Other is to fracture the relationship of God, which would mean somehow the fabric of the universe would be torn in two by our finite sin. How is that even possible? Read more at Did the Father Turn His Face Away?

This understanding of the gift of our salvation does not deny hell but does the opposite. It validates the reality of hell in the face of all the variations of belief in hell – including the literal and/or metaphorical descriptions. The good news… God loves us even when we don’t want God to! God’s love for us does not change. Hell cannot change God. God has defeated Hell. Hell does not defeat God. The question we are faced with is more about how God has always loved us and continues to love us. The Father didn’t turn His face away from Jesus and neither will God abandon you! This perspective of our salvation makes some people feel uncomfortable because they feel it somehow means that their experience with God’s love for them is being questioned. God/Love is not in question. How our religion understands God’s love is in question. Why? Because Jesus came to reveal who God really is… because our religion has taught us versions of God that do not represent God. Our religion is what is in question, not God’s love for us. Jesus did not come to create more confusion about God, but to show us God(F,S,S)’s identity, and in so doing to reveal to us who we are.

It is harder for us in the West to wrap our minds around the Cross not being a transaction in which God required/needed his pound of flesh (retribution) before God’s “justice” would be satisfied and only thereafter would God be “OK” to save us. We have been given images of God more in the fashion of a benevolent imperial ruler versus what Jesus has revealed to us about God as Abba. This imperial ruler (a pagan image) is part of what Jesus came to undo in revealing the fullness of God in human form. God’s salvation did not require a payment in the sense that God’s Holiness demanded recompense. Most of us have been taught in Church that Romans 3:25 says that Jesus was a propitiation for us. In effect, we were taught that God needed to be appeased by sacrifice. Doesn’t Scripture tell us that God does not desire sacrifice, but instead mercy? How does our understanding change when we learn that the word propitiation shouldn’t be in the Bible? It is a misinterpretation. How does a misinterpreted word like propitiation influence the shaping of such a toxic theological perspective that moves us away from a relationship with God as in Jesus’ prayer of being One with God? Although there is much merit to humans interacting with each other through a “fairness/justice” filter of meritocracy, God in Jesus demonstrated that is not what we have been created for but instead have been created for a relationship in Oneness with God. In the context of the parable of the vineyard workers, ask yourself this question, was it fair/just for the people who worked all day to only be paid $20 and the people who only worked 1 hour at the end of the day to also be paid $20? Jesus clearly demonstrates that God’s sense of fairness/justice is not the same as man’s. God is after (desires) something else. Jesus revealed what God desires. 

Take a look at this article by my friend Jack Hellein on why the word propitiation shouldn’t be in Scripture. It is amazing to me how a single misinterpreted word can make such a big difference in how we understand God and ourselves. 

If we understand that God does not desire sacrifice, nor to be appeased, what is it we are being saved from? Jesus didn’t come to change God’s mind about us. Jesus came to change our minds about God. How does that change our understanding of salvation? For the sake of this discussion let’s leave that as an open question for now. That’s a conversation for another day. I can say in some sense, that our salvation is more like healing from the blindness of not seeing who God created us to be. It’s like healing from terrible amnesia of not knowing who God says we are. Regardless of how we define salvation, we can know that it is not a gift that we can earn, but a gift we are created to participate in. Our participation in our gift of salvation is the turning away (metanoia) from the lies we believe about God and ourselves, and turning toward the identity that is only found in Jesus as fully human and fully God. The incarnation (including the Cross) reveals who God created us to be. God gifts us this revelation of our identity and our inclusion in Jesus. God has never not known us despite us neither knowing God nor ourselves, which is the essence of being lost. What once was lost, is found in Jesus. Our identity has always been found in God’s perspective despite the lostness of our fallen perspectives.

Us choosing God’s invitation for us to receive our salvation is to embrace the process of metanoia towards God’s gift to us, not something we earn or perform for. Neither is it something that we gain because we figured out how religion helps us get on God’s “good side,” but instead something we re-cognize (regain) from what God(F,S,S) has already provided. As in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. The son was always the son in the Father’s mind & heart. The son was never not the son. Only in the son’s mind was he not his Father’s son. The identity of both sons was always that of sons of their Father. Their sonship was not lost, but they were lost to their sonship. Both sons were struggling with embracing their true identity. The Father never saw either of them as not being his son. 

Can we see ourselves as either the religious rule-keeping older brother or the foolish younger prodigal brother, or both? Neither of them understood who their Father saw them to be. How are we lost to our identity as sons and daughters like them? Does our pain and suffering cloud our ability to see clearly? I think C.S. Lewis can help us with this question.

If you’ve read C.S. Lewis’ book, The Problem of Pain, you will recall some of the thoughts listed below. These moments of clarity for me did not come from C.S. Lewis or any other human author, but from the Holy Spirit over the last 10  years. That said, by God’s grace it felt good to be reassured and affirmed that I was not going crazy regarding what I’m sharing with you today. In Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, I found some reassurance that I was not alone, a thought in which I felt a smile and chuckle from the Holy Spirit. 

The following thoughts are my editorialized and paraphrased notes as I listened to the book, these, in particular, are from chapters 3-5.

• • Pain and suffering present the problem/question that either God is not all good or not all-powerful or maybe neither?
  • The view of God as suggested in the doctrine of total depravity is not consistent with what we Christians say we believe about God
  • I found understanding about God in the relationship between a human and a dog as a metaphor for my relationship with God. This metaphor compares to what Jesus reveals to us about our relationship with God. It is about God being willing to deal with us on our level (in terms of the lack of our ability to understand). God (in Jesus) comes to us and meets us in our need.
  • Comparisons of relationship and love in 3 important metaphors –
    • the first was a man’s relationship to a dog,
    • the second is the Father’s relationship to the Son (within the context of a paternal society that Israel was at the time of Jesus), and
    • thirdly the relationship between a husband and a wife.
  • God‘s Love is selfless. God does not need to be loved by us. God desires for us to be loved by God. Man’s version of love is often fixated on the object’s ability to meet a need. Man’s love, therefore, is self-centered, or at least a mix of selflessness and self-centeredness, whereas God’s love is purely selfless without the need for us to return the favor.
  • In the process of God pursuing us through an invitation to receive God’s wonderful gift, it may seem in Scripture that God requires or needs our compliance to be satisfied or complete. Yet, perhaps this perception problem is only on our end, not God’s. Additionally, perceiving God to be only the Father instead of the relationship of the Father,Son,Spirit is in part a struggle that we deal with in perceiving what the Relationship of God(F,S,S) is revealing to us in Scripture.
  • If God needs us it is only because we need God to need us. The world exists, not chiefly that we may love God, but that God may love us. If God as (F,S,S) lacks nothing and chooses to need us it is because we need to be needed. God has no needs. God is whole. God is complete.
  • Human’s version of love is the child of poverty (of want or lack). It’s caused by a real or supposed good in its beloved, which the lover needs and desires. But God‘s love, far from being caused by the goodness in the object, causes all the goodness that the object has; loving the object first into existence, then into real, though derivative livability.
  • God is goodness. Therefore God can give good, but cannot need more good as God is the source of all good. In other words, God(F,S,S) cannot need what can only exist in God (or what already exists only in God). God does not need more good, and certainly, God is not asking God’s creation to be good for God’s sake.
  • We, as God’s creation, can possess no good that doesn’t come from God. We have nothing to offer to God except that which God has given us. God created us to reflect the Relationship of the Father,Son,Spirit (God/Love) back to God (mimesis – as defined by Gerard – https://violenceandreligion.com/mimetic-theory/ ).
  • The Holiness of God is something more than moral perfection and something other than moral perfection. God’s claim upon us is something more and other than the claim of moral duty. God’s claim on us is the undying identity of being made One in the Relationship God by Jesus as what makes us individually unique and in unity at the same time. 

The issues we struggle with cause us to doubt ourselves as sons and daughters of God. With some of these thoughts in mind, I think it is also important to ask ourselves a few more questions about how we think about God as we continue on this journey. With each question about God(F,S,S)’s nature we should reconsider the filters we are using to understand God and ourselves in the context God has given us. 

For example, do we think God is Infinite? If so, we should interpret questions about God and Scripture through a filter of God being infinite, not finite. What do I mean by that?

If a doctrine we have been taught about God suggests that God has a need, or needs us to do something for God, then such a doctrine would require us to interpret God through a filter that says God is finite. So, as we move forward I will be speaking from/through a filter that understands God to be infinite and  GOD(F,S,S) as INFINITELY GOOD.

Out of this infinite goodness, God organically and freely creates. You are created out of the very nature of the Relationship of God. God does not force us to become something God did not create us to be. Yet, we are free to reject who God created us to be and instead create false, relative versions of God and ourselves. Some people get confused about what it means to be authentic. They confuse the feelings and desires influenced by their false, relative identities and delusions to be their authentic or “true” selves. This is part of the confusion of being lost. They use the misidentification of their authentic self as justification to do what makes them “feel good” in the moment, which often turns out to make them not feel good in the long run. Our authentic self only exists in the redemption of our relative identities to God’s absolute identity. We experience this redemption in our recognition and embrace of God’s presence with&in us. We cannot be our real, true selves without our recognition and embrace of God’s presence with&in us. 

Many people who are living lost lives do a similar thing with “love” that they also do with their perspective of their authentic self. They promote the false as authentic. They end up conducting their lives based on a belief that Love (F,S,S) is permissive. Despite the influence of these false beliefs; all thoughts, all behaviors, all ways of living are not equal. As much as Love does not judge other people’s motives, neither does Love call or approve of all relative human behavior good. 

What do I mean by false? I can tell you that there are two versions of reality, our relative reality and God’s absolute reality. We have to first realize that both are real, but only God’s absolute reality reveals who God says we are. Our relative reality/s are lost in the deceptions, delusions and lies we have incorporated into our lives about ourselves and God. The false relative realities that we identify with fill the perceived/believed “absence of God” and the emptiness we feel from not experiencing who God created us to be. As we recognize, embrace and experience who God created us to be, our identity with&in Jesus displaces the false that was once our identity. Who God says we are, is who we are. The question is will we agree with God? Who we are is a gift to be experienced. Our participation in the unique expression of God with&in us is our co-creative work with God. It is a gift.

One of the gifts that I get to participate in is God’s invitation for you to experience your Original Me. That acknowledged I am only mostly a joyful participant with the Holy Spirit. Why do I say, only mostly? Because my relative reality (“truth”) sometimes gets in my way of believing God’s absolute truth about myself, others and God. None of us are finished with this unfolding infinite gift of God. Not because God has withheld anything from us, but because we are slow (the limiting factor) in this process. God meets us where we are at in our process with God.

It’s helpful for me to think of Original Me as a mountain that we are climbing, and my Original Me gets to participate as a sherpa of sorts to someone else as they climb their own mountain. This mountain is not always easy, but it’s worth it! I’m here to challenge all of us to believe that God has already provided everything we need to receive God’s invitation and to embrace the experience of being One with the Relationship of God in Jesus (the fullness of God in human form that is our identity). Our suffering is finite, but the JOY set before us is infinite. 

Your ORIGINAL ME journey will facilitate and challenge you, if you allow it to. In the expedition up your mountain, you will begin to believe YOU MATTER; more importantly, you will experience that you do. When you decide to receive this freedom from God you will begin to see why other people matter. Even the most difficult of us are included.

As you see your Original Me for yourself, you will also see it for others. Dare to discover how God(F,S,S) sees you, and why You Matter.

Admission:

This is an “unorthodox” About section, but spiritually a very Orthodox look at God’s good news (as an invitation) of our transformation in Jesus. Jesus is the fullness of God in human form. 

The other two pages in the ABOUT section are important on your Original Me journey.

• • My Original Me Story is a brief summary of my journey.
  • The Story of the Bulb is a part of My Original Me Story. It is important for you to understand the process I was invited into by the Holy Spirit, It involved the imagery and symbolism that progressed into the logo that you see as the third image on the right.

    

Belief Summary:

What we believe about God and what God says about us is the first and most important step in our transformation to embracing our Original Me. My Original Me is here to help you as you explore the spiritual side of life. We are all in various stages of our spiritual journey with God… as we discover our Original Me we can re-cognize (re-know) that we have always belonged. Our problem was that we were not believing nor living like it. Although our relative realities change throughout our lives, God’s absolute reality does not. We can give Grace to each other when our understandings/perspectives of these two realities differ. Because of these differences, we recognize that we are on our own unique journeys with God.

Original Me core beliefs are centered in Jesus the Christ and His message as found in Scripture. There is ONE God, who is eternally existent in three persons–Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus is fully God and became fully human to save us from ourselves (our lostness/blindness to our God/sin divide – the separation we have created and perceive. God DOES NOT do abandonment, nor separation). The Holy Spirit guides every person in the moment/s of metanoia to understand that God(F,S,S) is already present with&in us, but intentionally or unintentionally being ignored by us. We re-cognize that we are saved by grace (faith in Jesus’ faithfulness to us), not by some measure of the faithfulness of our faith (works) – Ephesians 2:8. It’s not our faith in Jesus. It is God’s faith in Jesus in us!

 

Advent & Incarnation:

This is so important… let’s retrace some steps we’ve already trodden and go a little further up the mountain while we’re at it.

God did not give up anything that mattered most to God (anything infinite) in coming to us in Jesus. God did not give up God(F,S,S). On our behalf, God experienced/suffered our finite reality/s to save us from them. We remain damned in our delusions and sin until we recognize that Jesus has saved us from them. 

Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistle 101 to Cledonius the Priest Against Apollinarius says, “For that which He has not assumed (taken on or adopted) He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved.”

 

God did not become more God on the Cross. The Cross revealed who God has always been. The Life of the Christ (Advent, Cross, Dissension into Hell, Resurrection and Ascension) was God’s revelatory (rescue, saving, redeeming) movement towards us (meeting us where we are at) so we might choose to receive God’s invitation to see ourselves as God sees us and see God as God really is. This revelatory invitation is to believe/embrace that our identity is in Jesus from before the foundations of the world. In other words, God set the table for the feast before Creation. The incarnation of Jesus was the last invitation (reminder) needed to save us from our blindness (our lost, relative realities about God and ourselves). It was God’s invitation to end our religion and addiction to sacrifice and suffering. Addictions are based on lies. It was an invitation to lay down our heavy yokes (to the Jew it was the Law as religion) and pick up the lightness of being yoked with Jesus as the true Law.

No robes of glory or majesty were given up by God. God came to us as the final revelation of God in Jesus… the revelation of God’s glory and majesty. Jesus revealed the fullness of God. There has never been separation between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father’s face never turned away from Jesus – Psalms 22:24. Jesus re-presented the Relationship of God to us. God didn’t leave God behind in “Heaven,” Jesus (the fullness of God in human form) revealed that God’s version of “Heaven” is in us (God’s absolute reality). The “hell” in us is the lies and confusion of our relative realities.

Sin is not our problem; it is the fruit of our problem. Our problem originates in not agreeing with God about who we are. Who we are is revealed in Jesus. Jesus demonstrated to us that sin, death and hell are defeated. It is finished! Those who live as if it is not finished are those who remain lost. Some remain lost in religion. Some remain lost in themselves, which is ultimately the same. This perspective does not dismiss the importance of the Second Coming of Christ, it is what anticipation and celebration of Christ’s return look like.

Our current advent is not Jesus revealing more of God to us. The current advent we are waiting on is us receiving and embracing the gift God has already given. The most important question we can ask ourselves is when will we allow the full presence of Jesus to have free reign in us? This free reign of Jesus with&in us is the experience of who God says we are. 

Jesus DID NOT come to change the Father’s mind about us. Jesus came to change OUR MINDS about the Father. Our interpretations of Scripture about the Father have resulted in skewed perspectives of God’s identity and subsequently our own.

The Christmas season is about celebrating all that we have already been given in Jesus, not what we think we are waiting on. To wait for what we have already been given is to deny the GIFT of The Giver. It’s OK to open our GIFT and celebrate who God says we are!

I encourage you to go through the two pages under the ABOUT section: My Original Me Story and The Story of the Bulb Logo before you move on to the You Matter section.

It’s good that you are here. You are not alone. You are a unique voice among many! Don’t delay the embrace of your invitation to participate in who God created you to be! Now is the right time.