Jesus has so many amazing attributes, but the one that has been becoming a deeper revelation to me is that He was comfortable in His own skin. He was completely at home within Himself. The harmony that we see within Jesus in the scriptures came from being in perfect harmony-in perfect unison-with His heavenly Father. Jesus allowed His Father to wholly and utterly define every aspect and fiber of His being. Everything that He lived out came from the secret place of intimacy that He had with His Father. Every word that Jesus heard about Himself, He believed. Every ounce of love that the Father poured out upon His precious Son, He received. No questions asked, no doubting or fear that it was untrue.
While Jesus was fully God, He was also fully man. This means that while He knew who He was, He was also tempted to turn away from the voice of His Father, from the voice of truth. We see Satan so fiercely attacking Jesus’ identity right after the greatest affirmation that His heavenly Father had given to Him at His baptism (Matthew 3:17-4:11). Why would he do this? It seems diabolical. And it is. Satan knows that every victory and the authority we exercise comes from knowing who we are and whose we are. Jesus was certainly one person he did NOT want knowing who He was. While the battle was fierce, the truth that was assimilated into the core-the very core-of who Jesus was, was stronger and bigger than the lies. God is shouting truth over us through this story for our own lives.
It seems ironic that I would be writing about being comfortable in being ourselves because I was everything but for most of my life. After years of self-hatred, rejection, and lack of love for myself, the truth and freedom that comes from knowing-really knowing-what my heavenly Father says over my life have brought me to the place of seeing who He has made me to be, flaws and all, and really liking and loving myself. It was in worship today when I was tempted to be jealous of something that God is doing in someone else that I realized how far God has brought me. Even a year ago, a simple temptation and thought like I had today would have sent me into feeling bad about myself and believing the lie that was dangling right before me to keep me blind to who I really am. Ah, but I have learned how to see myself and how to love myself so much in the last year that, at times, it is overwhelming (in a good way)! God has and is restoring my sense of “self” to me. For those who do not know my story (I share it in my book, ” In His Footsteps”), my life was filled with rejection and abuse, causing me to reject myself and live under the endless torment of fear and shame, until God’s love and redemption broke into my life, causing me to see myself as He always had.
How did this happen? The same way that it did for Jesus. Everything that Jesus was and knew to be true about Himself flowed from intimacy with Father God. Spending time in the presence of the One who made you has a way of freeing your heart to be you. Allowing God’s voice to be the authority on who we are is imperative to our freedom. Jesus never fit into anyone’s idea of who He should be-except God’s. He did not allow Himself to shrink down to anyone’s box that they tried to contain and restrain Him in. Not His family, not religious leaders, not anyone else. I believe Jesus decided early on that who God made Him to be was enough. Period. In the scriptures, we see Jesus being fully “Him” and never-not once-apologizing for who He was. He embraced who He was, accepted it, and went on to fulfill everything that God had planned for Him.
This is the gift that Jesus offers to us! We can be completely and utterly untangled from the web of lies that say we are not enough or that we must be more. As we sit at the feet of Jesus and take His words into our very being, we will become more like Him. As we allow His love to show us how intricately He has fashioned us, our hearts will join in jubilant worship with King David who says, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are Your works and that my soul knows very well” (Psalm 139:14). Yes, beloved, our God wants us to know these truths so well and to be completely happy and satisfied being “us”!
