The Only True God

As Jesus prepares for His last hours on the earth, the time of His passionate walk toward death, He intercedes for us. He prays that we would have eternal life, saying:

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” -John 17:1-3.

Jesus makes it clear. Eternal life is knowing the only true God, the Father of glory, and His Son whom He sent to die for us. It’s that simple. Enter into the knowledge of God through the fear of the Lord, and you will live forever. Immortality starts now. The Fountain of Youth the Spaniards searched for when they came into America is actually the Word of the Living God. He is Living Water. We can enter into eternal life simply by accepting that Jesus is the Son of God, as He claims, and inviting Him into our lives to love us. We may know God by simply receiving His love. It’s amazing. We do nothing, because He did everything. He initiated, we respond. Our response is a simple “yes” to His love. When we say “yes” to Jesus as our Savior and His Lordship, He washes us in His love, and we become clean and whole. Any feelings of shame, failure, disappointment, hopelessness, depression, etc. are all washed away, because His love is so perfect and so complete. Nothing can stand before it. How did I go from immortality to love, you may ask. Well, the truth is: it all starts with love. Immortality is obtained through love. God is love. Jesus is God. And yet, He is the Son of God. This is a mystery, but not a contradiction. It’s so simple, and, yet, so profound. How can Jesus be God and the Son of God at the same time? The answer is found in His identity as the Son of Man. Another part of the mystery that is very necessary to tie it all together. No one can see God and live. So, God overshadows a woman and implants the very essence of His being into her body in the form of a man. See? Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Man. Born of a woman by the power of God. Many say this is impossible, yet the same would not deny that God is all-powerful. How can it be impossible, if God can do anything in His absolute power and sovereignty? If He can do it is not an appropriate question. Rather, we should ask why He would do such a thing as restrict Himself in the body of a man and fashion Himself both the Son of God and the Son of Man? Had He not, we would not know the love of the Father. If Jesus did not show us God as Father, would we know the truth of His love? We would not. God would still be the distant, powerful, incomprehensible God that so many envisioned Him as in the pass. Jesus came to show us that God is the God of love, and His very desire is to love us and be near to us. Without this love, we would not have eternal life, and immortality would continue to be a myth and not the reality. In the Bible, John writes that all who receive Jesus are given the right to become sons of God. Jesus shows us what it means to call God Father. To see Him as our loving Daddy who wants to shower us with good things. I did not truly know God as Father until I went to Jesus. Jesus appeared before me and wrapped me in His strong arms. I was trapped in a flood of tears that were my own, as love emanated from and went through me. It cleaned every part of my being and made me whole. I was changed by the love of Jesus. Since that day, I’ve had the courage to walk boldly to the throne of God time and time again. I’ve stood before a perfect, holy, and loving God, knowing Him as my Father. I’ve climbed into His lap, laid my head on His chest, and relished the love that He pours upon me every time I go to Him. When I am tired, He rocks me to sleep in His strong arms. When I need comforting, He wipes my tears away and strokes my hair as He soothes me with words of encouragement. He sings over me and delights in me, His daughter. As a little girl twirls for her daddy, I dance for mine before His heavenly throne. As He rejoices over me, I know I am loved, because I am His child. Our Heavenly Father has our best in mind, and He just wants us to receive His love, because there is life in it. There is life in His love. When we receive His love, then we come into the knowledge of the only true God. Once we receive this knowledge, then we are truly free. It’s His desire for us to be free, and there is freedom in His love.

Life In Death

“Then Jesus said to the disciples: ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever desires to lose his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” – Matthew 16:24-26

There is true life in death. Jesus leads the way to eternal life. It is a hard thing for many to understand, even those who profess to live in the Name of Christ. This concept is profound. It’s beyond our human understanding. It is treasure hidden in the heart of God, and you will only begin to understand it when you walk it out with Him. This is not something to be understood mentally, then exercised. Rather, it is to be understood as you exercise it. I’m sure the disciples had no idea what Jesus meant when He spoke this. Even so, they believed Him, because His words contained life and their hearts stirred when He spoke. God speaks, and our innermost beings respond. We respond to the Uncreated, because it is by this very Word that we were created. We responded then, and we respond even now. However, now our responses are different, because we test everything with our understanding before we are willing to trust and believe in it. What is the understanding of man in light of the understanding of God? Our understanding is darkness when compared to the light of His magnificent understanding. Until we obtain His understanding, we remain in darkness. We obtain this understanding by saying “yes” to Christ and following Him to the cross. Some would call this blind faith. How do you follow God to the cross if you have no understanding of this principle of life in death? Because God is good, and He only has good planned for me (Jeremiah 29:11). There is no evil in God. The fullness of His being is good. My faith is in God, not in the road. If I focused on the road everywhere I walked, I would stumble over the next step and walk into things. That’s walking blindly to me. But, if my focus is on Jesus, the person leading the way, I will be able to walk without stumbling or bumping into things. I will be able to avoid the obstructions in the path, because He clears the way. Jesus clears the way to God in His journey to the cross. As I follow Him, I walk down a clear path to the presence of God and make way for others to walk without care to the Father. Trust God. There is life in death. We follow Christ to the cross. For there, we see the truth of our being. We are confronted with our weakness and the depravity of our sin. In that moment, He speaks. We respond. He created us with free will, and we have a choice. We can choose to die to our sin and self-preservation, and choose God. Or, we can choose to continue in our “self-sufficiency” and to gain the acceptance of the world. The truth is: you can’t serve God and the world, because no one can have two masters. Thus, you can’t love God and the world. When Jesus took up the cross and walked to Golgotha to be crucified, He died to the world. God is asking us to do the same. I don’t mean literally killing yourself, but turning from the desires of the flesh to know God. Dying to oneself means denying your physical desires and being obedient to where God is leading you. When Jesus died, He took upon himself our sins, our hatred, our feelings of worthlessness and condemnation, our pains, sickness, and disease, (etc.) and He died with all of these things upon Him so we would not have to live with them. When we die to ourselves, we are saying “no” to these things and choosing to live in Christ, who died and was raised again. This is not the popular path, but it is the only path to God. If you want to be popular, you will lose your soul. If you want to know God, not just know about Him, but have intimate knowledge of Him as a close friend of His, you must give the fullness of your being to Him. You must die to the things you love and are familiar with that oppose Him. You would not keep doing things that dishonored a friend if you knew he felt dishonored when you did those things. Why do we keep dishonoring God when He makes it clear to us what dishonors Him? Dying to oneself means turning from those things that dishonor God and choosing to honor Him in everything. When we do this, He promises to honor us with eternal life. We do not choose to be good for the sake of being good. This only brings glory to oneself. We choose good and not evil for the sake of Christ. We will only find life when we live for Christ’s sake. I chose to live for Jesus, and now, I truly live. Before, I went through life in a daze, walking out day-to-day life without any sense of purpose or fulfillment. Now, life has become an adventure, and everyday is full of excitement, because I am alive. I live with God, as Christ lives in me. He leads me in this adventure, and I get to experience my greatest joy: daily walking with God. In His presence, my heart is exposed: my wants, my desires, and my dreams. I examine them, and those that are not in alignment with Him, I die to that I might live more freely in Christ. I know my heart, and my flesh is weak, but God gives me the strength to continue this journey to life when I choose Him and not the world. The world perishes and those who live by it will perish with it. But, those who live in Christ find everlasting life with God. In Christ, we are immortal as we walk out the fulfillment of our purpose. We were created to know Him, the only true God.

Few Find It

There is a way that leads to God. Few people find it. Jesus urges His audience to enter through the gate that leads to this path. In Matthew 7:13-14, He says: Enter by the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Two things struck me as I typed this verse: 1) it is our natural tendency to walk towards destruction, and 2) the narrow gate is full of offense. Webster’s Dictionary defines offense as the following:

1 a obsolete : an act of stumbling b archaic : a cause or occasion of sin : stumbling block


2 : something that outrages the moral or physical senses


3 a : the act of attacking : assault b : the means or method of attacking or of attempting to score c : the offensive team or members of a team playing offensive positions d : scoring ability


4 a : the act of displeasing or affronting b : the state of being insulted or morally outraged 


5 a : a breach of a moral or social code : sin, misdeed b : an infraction of law; especially : misdemeanor

The way of God is offensive to the heart, the body, and the mind of men. It is offensive to the moral and social codes established in the world, because it brings the destructiveness and depravity of these standards into the light. When this happens, the heart of men is exposed. God did not leave us to navigate this road alone, but He extends Himself to show us the way. Jesus is the gate to this path, and Holy Spirit is the guide, while love is a budding staff on our hike to the Father. By love, we are able to enter into His presence and receive the pleasure He showers on us. Once Christ is received, another challenge arises. Jesus says two things that test the heart of the new believer and determines their ability to walk down this path:

The first: “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord’ and not do the things which I say?” – Luke 6:46

And the second: “If you love Me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper that He may abide with you forever…If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” – John 14:15-16, 23

Rebellion and shame have been increasing in the hearts of men since The Fall. Jesus confronts these two issues in these verses. We rebel against the commands of God, thus rebelling against His very heart and nature. Our rebellion brings shame, because in our hearts, we know we were created for a higher way of living. We were created to enjoy the pleasure of knowing God. We hinder ourselves from doing so by continuing in the cycle of rebellion and shame. When we give ourselves to the higher authority of God, and not to the fleeting desires of our own hearts, we will begin to progress down this road of life. We are saved by repenting of our sins and making Jesus Christ Lord of our lives, but how many of us live out this salvation that we profess? If Jesus Christ truly is our Lord, why do we continue in our rebellion? Why do we fail to take His word and commandments seriously? Because our hearts have not connected with the God of the universe. He is love. We can only come to Him when we understand the love He has for us through believing in the sacrifice of His Son. From that point, we must make a conscience decision every day to live in obedience to Him. As we choose to live obediently, we choose to declare daily that Jesus Christ is our Lord. We’ve entered through the gate. Jesus hands us the budding staff of love and points us towards Holy Spirit who has been awaiting our arrival. With joy, He takes us by the hand and begins to lead us down a difficult path that is full of life and love if we choose to receive what He is offering. For many, they enter through the gate and are ridden with fear, regret, and shame. They are not able to take the first step, but Holy Spirit is ever extending Himself to them that He may help them overcome that first step towards love. If the staff goes unused, we grow cold. But, when we allow Holy Spirit to teach us how to use the staff, how to walk in love, then a growing passion drives us, as we are in the midst of the All-Consuming Fire. Jesus says, we show our love by obeying Him, by keeping His words, and walking in His command. Only then, are we able to touch the heart of God and enter into His joy in the center of His flaming gaze. Beloved, don’t hinder yourself from living a life of true passion and pleasure. It’s in Christ alone. In Him, you’ll be revived. I gave myself to His authority. It was the best thing I’ve ever done. From that point, love has flooded my life, and I am kept in His passionate gaze. When I stare into His eyes, I’m further in love and begin to realize the height of my worth. I walk down this path that is narrow and hard to find. It’s the most scenic path, not easy, but so beautiful. I chose to love God, no matter what comes. Love is obedience. I gave up rebellion for authority and shame for love. And, now my heart has been awakened. Offense comes, but it can’t stand before love, because I took up my cross and have found life in death.

He Rescued Me

Hosea 6:6 says: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” God is telling the people: “I don’t want your empty deeds; I want your heart.” Jesus died for your sins. God’s ultimate goal: to bring us into intimacy with Him and, thus, save us from eternal punishment. He did not desire to give His Son, but rather to show mercy to a rebellious people. His heart is for us. The moment Adam and Eve sinned, God counted the cost to reconcile our relationship with Him. He was ready to pay it and spent millennia preparing us for His sacrifice. We frown at God’s request of Abraham when He asks him to sacrifice Isaac. We quicken our compassion for Abraham’s situation and fail to see the Father’s heart. He rescued Isaac from Abraham’s hand. He did not rescue Jesus from His own. God desires mercy and not sacrifice. Jesus repeats this to the Pharisees instructing them to go learn what it means. He is telling them to have compassion on their brethren. It’s a hard thing for men to do, but how so, when a holy God has compassion on a fallen people? We stand in false righteousness believing ourselves not to be in as bad a state as the other. The truth: sin is sin, and nothing can satisfy God except a pure heart. But wait, how can this be when our understanding of purity is tainted by our own filthiness? We have no knowledge of good without God, and our righteous acts are as filthy rags. We are but dust, pitiful in our greatest exploits even when compared to the weakest moment of God.

“He is despised and rejected by men. A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief…He was oppressed and afflicted. Yet He opened not His mouth, He was led as a lamb to the slaughter…” Isaiah 53:3, 7

Why is it that we only need a pure heart to satisfy God? Because He already paid the price for our sins. He gave the sacrifice that wounded His heart. I often think of the pain of my Lord praying in Gethsemane. He was afflicted. He prayed for the cup to be taken from Him, but He knew there was only one way His beloved bride had the chance to enter into His arms. He had to die. He knew the depth of His suffering. He replayed it again and again as He prayed for strength. And, amazingly, with the full knowledge of the price He must pay, He remained silent and bore the cross. The Father saw His Son’s plight for it was His own: that the bride may be restored to truth and purity and His children may be set free to love Him. The Father’s heart ached as Jesus prayed in agony, but both knew what was necessary. They knew the cost from the beginning, and it was time for the payment. Jesus’ walk towards His death was painful, but the most traumatizing of His experience was the moment in which there was a break in the eternal fellowship of God with Himself. There was not a moment in all eternity in which God the Father and God the Son were not in complete communion as the One True God. In that moment, the omnipresent God was both in heaven and on earth orchestrating the greatest rescue in all eternity. He saw Himself on the cross and, in His anger towards the sin-ridden Being, He turned away. Oh, the heartache of both Father and Son as they endured the greatest suffering imaginable. Both sacrificed heart and life. Why would the God of the universe suffer so much when He has angels in constant worship of His magnificence and holiness? Because He loves you. It’s that simple. He loves you. To Him, you are worth the sacrifice. He forsook His holiness, clothed Himself with sin, and died for you. He is only asking for you to acknowledge your sins and recognize His sacrifice. He is asking for you to examine your heart and come to Him with pure faith in His love. A heart of purity is His desire. I was a sinner who gave myself to the lies of the world. I lived in deception and believed in a false notion of God. One day, He opened my eyes to the truth of His sacrifice and how He rescued me. Then, I saw and received His sacrifice without loving Him in return, and so I was not completely free. I knew my Savior, but I didn’t understand how He was my Lord until I began to walk down His path. It is a hidden path, and only few find it.

I Was Marked

People have told me they could not imagine me without Jesus. Not in those exact words, but you get the picture. That’s more of a testament to the transforming power of God than my own character. I praise the Lord for where He’s brought me, the wildernesses He’s led me through, the waters We’ve tread together, the mountains We’ve scaled, the valleys We’ve crossed. I praise Him for all of it. No matter how difficult or painful, joy has never left me because my Lord has never forsaken me. He can’t. It’s not in Him to do so. How have I come to this point? I do not know. But one thing I do know, I was marked. In my youth, my parents gave each of us a passage to memorize. My passage was Romans 8:28-30.

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified, and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

My daddy would make me recite it whenever people came over. Every time I did, this passage struck a cord in my heart. I knew life for me would be different than most, but I did not know all that it would entail. Even now, I’m still finding out how incredibly strange, yet fulfilling, life with God is. The strangeness isn’t in the deeds; it’s in the being. God asks us to be still and know that He is God. In the being, God reveals Himself to us in all His glorious mystery. In this place, the mystery is no longer mysterious. He unfolds the layers of His existence within our hearts, and we are changed. The strangeness is in the being, because in this place, the unknown is made known. I was marked for the stillness. I grew up with a plaguing dissatisfaction with all that surrounded me. My friends did not satisfy. I loved my family, but I needed more. I longed for something that seemed so unreachable. I desired with my entire being to feel what seemed intangible. I was marked. Everything around me contributed to the death of my soul, and I felt it. I knew it, but I felt helpless to change. I did not know what change looked like or what it would bring. Then, I learned the stillness in being, and my dissatisfaction waned until it was no more. I understood for what I was marked. The invisible became visible; the unknown became known. I learned the secrets in the mystery. How did I get to this place where the scales were removed and my vision became clear? God rescued me. I gave myself to His love, and He rescued me.

Steadfast Love

I love Jesus. Living this love is hard. The hard part is not the commandments, requirements, or rules that most people believe are necessary to be a lover of God. The hard part for me is receiving His love. That's where we often fail. God's love for us is so perfect, so complete, so unyielding, so steadfast that it doesn't require a response from us. It just is. My response and ability to love God is out of a desire within me to know Him...truly know Him. I don't want to know about Him. I don't want to know Him through other people. I don't want Him to be a friend of a friend. I want to be so close to Him in being, in understanding, in knowledge, in love that people do not consider me without Him coming to mind. But even this is difficult. Why? Because I am human, and I fall short. I'm not making any excuses for my shortcomings. I'm stating fact. I'm not yet perfect, but His love for me never fails. I do not understand how He can love me so perfectly even when I mess up and disappoint, but He does. It is not in me to understand, but it's completely Him to be God, and God is love. So simple, yet so hard to receive. For those of us who choose not to receive His love, His love still does not fail. There is nothing any of us can do to deter God from loving us. His hand is always extended to us, and His passion for us remains a burning flame. Why is it so hard for people to go to Him? It's the issue of man: we consider ourselves unlovable and are filled with shame. God defies all we have come to accept and know to be true. My advice: trade your truth for His and allow Him to make you whole. Whether you believe in Jesus or not, we all need to be renewed by His love. This is not just for unbelievers, but for everyone under the sun. God loves you. Receive His love. You can smack His hand away if you want, but I urge you to seek Him while He can still be found. His love remains, but our chances at receiving it are fleeting. Receive it while you can. My heart in all this: to make Him known that you may be transformed by His love.

"In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. We love Him, because He first loved us." - 1 John 4:9-10, 19