(You can read the introduction to this 8 week study here. You can also click the tag at the bottom of this post and all of the Biblical Motherhood posts will be shown to you.)
Ask the Lord for His identity to be revealed to you in greater clarity today! He knit you together, and wants you to know Him. He is so pleased that you are studying and He will bless your every effort!
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“That, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord,” 1 Corinthians 1:31.
There is a children’s book entitled Blueberries For Sal (by McClosky) in which Little Sal and a bear cub get mixed around while each of them are picking blueberries with their mother. Little Sal hears a noise and follows what she thinks is her mother, eating blueberries all the way. Little Bear has the same experience as he is busy munching the sweet berries. Only in time do any of them check to see how the other is doing only to find, “You’re not my baby!” and, “You’re not my Mother!” Both Mother and Mama Bear do find their own offspring and all of the berry-eaters leave Blueberry Hill satisfied. (Mother even has blueberries enough to can for winter!)
It is a sweet illustration of a much greater search for truth: Who is Jesus? To be following someone we think is our Savior, only to find out that we have not had Him at all would be devastating now, and also have eternal consequences.
“Who are You, Lord?” Acts 9:5
If we will go to God’s Word for the answer, we will find what we need to know, and we, too, will leave in security, having been satisfied!
“But let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows Me,” Jeremiah 9:24.
If we know God, we can boast about Him! Did you think all boasting was wrong? Here is one that, in God’s economy, is good boasting, in fact, it pleases Him. As we know God, we will understand!
“Knowledge of the Holy One is understanding,” Proverbs 9:10.
Way back in the beginning, God was revealing Himself through His creation, even before sin entered the world. We read in Revelation 13:8 that Jesus is referred to as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Before He even began His creating process, God knew what would all take place, and He knew the Remedy He would provide.
As He considered His crowning work, mankind, He ‘conferred together.’ “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness...,” Genesis 1:26.
In fact, in the first verse of the Bible, the word used to describe God is, in Hebrew, plural. “In the beginning, God...”
The word used is elohiym, “plural of elowahh; gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used of the supreme God.”
Yet Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”
When Jesus, in John 10:30, said, “I am My Father are one,” what was He saying? We are going to look at the Bible and compare, Old Testament and New, to see the whole teaching from God’s Word on Jesus’ identity. We will choose some key verses, but there are many more that you may read in your quiet times with the Lord. If you stay consistent in spending time each day with the Lord and His Word, you will learn more than if you study a large amount in a sitting or two, and then nothing for days. It’s like eating. You will be stronger if you take regular, healthy meals than if you gorge on whatever you happen to find in the kitchen, and then fast for days.
Following are eight questions. You will be able to find the answers in the Bible verses provided.
Question #1:
In Isaiah 44:6, we find the first part of this course of the meal! From this verse, by what names does God reveal Himself?
The word ‘revelation’ means ‘the act of revealing’. From the first line in Revelation 1:1, Who does the book of Revelation reveal?
Just a few verses down, see Revelation 1:8 and 11. By what names does Jesus reveal Himself?
Outside of any other teaching, what does the Bible itself claim about the identity of the First and the Last?
Question #2:
The glory of God is His ‘weight’, His splendor, His reality.
What does God say about His glory in Isaiah 42:8?
With this in mind, please turn to John 17:5. What does Jesus say about His glory?
If God doesn’t give or share His glory with anyone, yet Jesus has had God’s glory from before the world was created, who is Jesus?
Question #3:
From Isaiah 6:1, who did Isaiah see?
From John 12:41, who did Isaiah see? (For clarity on who is the subject of verse 41, please read verses 36-41.)
From these two portions of Scripture, what is the identity of the One who appeared to Isaiah?
Question #4:
Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and Omega is the last. From Revelation 22:13, Who is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last? (Verse 16 identifies the speaker.)
Who is the First and the Last? Please see Isaiah 48:12 and 13.
Revelation 1:17,18 – Again, Who is the First and the Last?
From verse 18, what are His credentials?
Question #5:
Who raised Jesus from the dead? Acts 2:24
Romans 8:11
John 2:19
Using information from the Bible only, in your own words, who raised Jesus from the dead?
Question #6:
The word ‘manifest’ is defined as “Clearly apparent to the understanding or the senses; palpable; obvious. To make plain to sight or understanding; reveal; display.”
Please read 1 Timothy 3:16 (in the King James Version if you have it). Who was manifested in flesh?
What does that say about Jesus?
Question #7:
What does Jesus’ name ‘Immanuel’ mean? (Matthew 1:23)
Question #8:
In Isaiah 45, the Lord emphasizes one truth over and again. To find it, read verses 5-6, 14,18 and 21. What is it? Please copy Isaiah 45:22. God says there is no other god besides Him, and He ought to know. He is God! Is God’s motive to try to disguise Himself and be mysteriously hidden? Read Isaiah 45:19. (1 Corinthians 14:33 may also give insight.) When we think that God is trying to deceive us and manipulate us, who is actually doing the deceiving and manipulating? (Romans 2:1, “…For in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.”) Oh, soften your heart to receive the truth! Jesus is God in the flesh, and He is desperately in love with you! He has done everything to make a way for you to be with Him! From 2 Corinthians 11:4, does every church preach the same Jesus? Are there those who would urge you to receive a different spirit than the Spirit of God? Is there a gospel that some preach that is not the gospel of the Jesus who is God in the flesh? In 2 Corinthians 11:3 it is written: “But I fear, lest somehow...your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” Dear friend, there is simplicity in the Living God! It is found in believing Him, putting your trust in what He has done for you, and what He says.
Jesus says in Matthew 7:23 to those who will not be in His kingdom, “I never knew you.” He is desiring an intimate relationship with you. His desire is to know and be known by you.
The cross of Jesus, this Jesus, is offensive because it says that you are not good enough to win God’s favor, that your good works are filthy in God’s sight because they promote you. Any other Jesus will accept your efforts and demand more of you. But God the Son will accept nothing that you bring; He demands only that you place your trust in Him. That requires that you leave off working for your salvation. In your mind, your trust must be placed in Him instead of in yourself, or in any one else. His sacrifice is sufficient for you!
If you have placed your trust in another Jesus, it is time for you to believe God’s Word and agree with God. The Bible is where we learn of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Bible is where we learn who He is, and who we are. Why should we take another companion book to the Bible so that we must believe the Bible sometimes and the other teaching other times? God says His Word is pure (Psalm 12:6). If you place your trust in Him and His Word, the Bible, you will know the God who made you and loves you, who redeems your life from the pit, who calls you His own, and will never leave nor forsake you.
If you have called others Christians who have confessed another Jesus than the Jesus the Bible reveals, you have given them false hope and have disagreed with God to their hurt. It is time for you to believe God’s Word and agree with Him.
“For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance,” Matthew 9:13.
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with Me", Revelation 3:20.
If this issue has not been a crucial matter to you, you have not seen it the way God does. The name of Jesus is about His identity. This Jesus, the Son of God and God, the Son, is the only One who has the authority and power to redeem a soul from an eternity apart from God. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved,” Acts 4:12.
There is no one like our God! He is the One who saves!
Will you pray with me?
Lord, You have spoken clearly in Your Word about Your identity. You don’t require that we understand the Trinity, but only that we trust what You say above our own thoughts. In this matter, I relinquish my ideas and ask You to replace them with faith in You and what Your Word teaches. Help me to see that Your Word gives life, and that You are the Hope of the whole world. There is no one who doesn’t need You. I worship You as You tell me who You are in Your Word. I place my trust in You, the God who came in flesh to save me. Cause me to be unashamed of the truth of Your identity in the presence of others, because You alone are God. In Jesus’ name I pray, A-men.
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