So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. {Genesis 1:27}
We search for and look for who we are, from the moment that we can reason and understand the things around us. As soon as we discover that we are different from everybody else, the search for ‘self’ begins. We know we are not our brother or our sister, and we are not our mother or our father. We love them, we grew up in the same environment, we might even look and talk like them. But we know we are not them. We are unique, we are an individual, and there is no one else like us.
But we want to know who we are. We want to know what we are here for. Why were we made? Why do we exist? We have such a need to find ourselves – our true calling, and what will make us truly happy. So from the very beginning of our life we seek out to find out what we’re going to be when we grow up. I remember thinking when I was maybe nine or ten years old I was going to be a teacher. It seemed such a higher calling, more than any other calling I was aware of at that time. I was going to be a teacher, an elementary school teacher. Then as I got older and I got more exposed to other experiences in this life, I started to entertain being an entrepreneur, maybe a business owner. Then as I got even older and “wiser,” I thought it made more sense to climb high up the corporate ladder and become an executive instead. There was always that need to find myself, to find who I am supposed to be in this life and what I was created for. But I really didn’t know what I wanted. I was always in a constant search.
Who knew that to find my answer all I had to do was to find God? Thankfully, God had other plans for me, or I’ll still be searching for who I am. All the while I was constantly searching for myself and what will make me happy, God was whispering for me to find Him. When I finally responded to that whisper and spent time seeking after Him, I found what I was looking for. I found myself.
Do you know that finding God is finding ourselves? I found this out after finally giving up my search for what will make me truly happy. I said one day, “Okay, God, You win. I’ll do whatever you want from now on, just help me.” So I found myself spending more and more time with the Lord in prayer. The more I found Him, the more I found who I am. I don’t know why this should be such a mystery, when after all God has made us and created us in His own image. Who else can better reveal to me what will truly make me happy than God Himself?
The New Age movement teaches us this idea that when we look into ourselves and find the truest expression of ourselves, we will find happiness. It tells us that we are Gods, and that all we need to do is to find ourselves. We need to search and find out inside of us what will truly make us happy, and then we will hit nirvana. The problem with that is; first, the Bible tells us that there is only one God. The God of Israel tells us Himself,
I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me. {Isaiah 45:5}
God made us. He created us, no one else. We did not create ourselves, God did. The psalmist tells us,
Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. {Psalm 100:3}
Secondly, no one can know their own heart. One day you think you want to be a teacher, the next you want to be an executive in some corporation. No one can guarantee the path that they will choose in this life will really make them happy. Have you seen people marry the wrong person and tell you without batting an eyelid that they’ve found the right mate? You know by looking at them that they’re just so incompatible, and yet they will try to convince you they’ve found their soul mate. No one can know their heart. No one. The Bible tells us this,
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. {Jeremiah 17:9-10}
The heart is deceitful, so how in the world are we ever going to find out our true happiness or our true calling by looking into ourselves? What’s the chance of us winning that search? I can guarantee you, zilch. Zero percent. I mean if we did not create ourselves (as the scripture tells us), how in the world are we going to know ourselves? Yet on the other hand, if we find God, the chance of us finding our true selves and our true calling in this life would be one hundred percent. And finding God is far easier than finding ourselves, because He shows us the way. Jesus tells us,
I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. {John 14:6}
Basically if we find Jesus Christ, we find God. And when we find the God who made us and created us, we find ourselves.
God tells us in Jeremiah,
And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. {Jeremiah 29:13}
Jesus is the answer to finding ourselves. When we find Jesus, we find ourselves. The Bible further tells us about Him,
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. {John 1:3-4}
Without Christ nothing can exist in this life. That means you and I are here because of God – not because of ourselves. Without God we wouldn’t be here. So to seek for and look for the truest expression of who we are, and what we are here for from our own selves, will bring only disappointments. The simplest answer to finding ourselves is finding God. Through Jesus Christ we find God. He is God manifested in the flesh, so that we can have God and see God face to face.
I tell you, I’ve never felt so happy and so fulfilled in this life until I found Jesus Christ and He revealing Himself to me. I feel so complete today because of the Lord. When I finally stopped searching out there in the world for what I thought would make me happy, and finally turned to the Lord and said, “Father, here I am. Please help me,” I found myself. Finding God is finding fulfillment and joy and peace and happiness. It’s finding meaning in this life and our worth. Finding God is finding ourselves. Everything was made by Him, so it just makes total sense that anything and everything we could ever need of and ever long for we will find in Him.
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him. {Colossians 1:16}
But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. {1 Corinthians 8:6}
My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. {Psalm 73:26}
Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. {Jeremiah 17:7-8}
Prayer
Lord Jesus, I praise and worship You. You are my God, You are my life, and You are my help. You are my everything oh Lord. I thank You with all of my heart for Your truth in my life. I thank You for Your grace and compassion upon my soul, for giving Your life at the cross at Calvary so that I can find forgiveness and remission for my sins – so that I can find You, my God today in my soul. Thank You, Jesus.
Father, help me to always look to You for my joy and happiness. Help me to always find my worth in You. You alone know me inside and out, there is nothing I can hide from You. You know how to fulfill me and satisfy me and make me happy. You know how to give me meaning in this life. Please help me to live for You and follow You until the end.
I pray this Father in Your most wonderful and blessed name, Jesus. Thank You, Father. Amen.
#repost2019/6/18
