Belovedness As Core Identity

Jesus Baptism And God’s Voice

Solitude And Community Paradox

Why We Avoid Presence

Seasons Of The Spiritual Journey

Wilderness As Strengthening Belovedness

Temptation Attacks Identity First

Pause Let Go Return Practice

Breathing Prayer And Earning Trap

Prayer And Closing Charge

Donald E Coleman 0:21

All right, welcome back to another episode of Daily Living for Christ. And I'm excited about, I don't want to use the word I'm excited, but as you remember, the last series, I ended it, but there was a consistent theme that showed up in that last series, and I think it manifests itself in the last episode. So I'm going to kind of flow into what I believe God is leading us to. So today I'm about to begin a new series, and we're going to stay in this as long as we need to. But the series is the focus on it. I believe the Holy Spirit is leading us to this place of tenderness and purpose. And the series is titled Beloved. Becoming Who We Already Are. I just want you to settle on that. Beloved. Becoming who you already are. And we are going to begin with the with the foundational truth that rests beneath all spiritual formation. So it's it's it's the hidden river. It's it's the core of our being, it's the core of who God is. So it's it's foundational truth, but I don't know if everybody, if all believers understand this truth. And I believe this is one of the reasons why that came up. And it's not just come up in this in this area, it's come up in other areas where I've been talking to individuals and in groups, and I don't know if they're grabbing a hold of this. So, but it again, it's a foundational truth that rests beneath all spiritual formation. And let me say this: if you think about transformation, you cannot have trance formation without having spiritual formation. So because you come here and you download these episodes and you listen to these episodes, you are getting the formation side or the spiritual formation side of the word of God working in you. And through that formation, the Holy Spirit can now use the word that you are receiving to cause a transformation. Trance meaning movement, right? So there is a movement of formation. So what was old gets renewed out or gets transformed out into what's new. And I believe that this series is gonna be a powerful awareness for us as believers to grab a hold of it. So let me say it again, and I keep wanting to go through this, but every time I get there, there's more. So this foundational truth, we're gonna begin with the foundational truth that rests beneath all spiritual formation, all ministry, all callings, all growth, and all healing, and all identity. Before anything else ever transpires or transpired, you are beloved, you are beloved, I am beloved, and all of humanity is beloved, so not one day, it's not in the future, and it's not in the past, it's not when we get stronger, it's not after we improve, it is now we are beloved from the be from eternity past to eternity present. We are going to be beloved, and I want to say this because most people, when you read in scripture, I shared with you guys how agape is the now, right? So agape is the divine energy of God's love that sustains, pursues, and forms us. So once we receive agape, right? It's love received. The next derivative of agape, which is the adjective, is agape tan, a-g a-p-e-t-o in, which means the beloved. And as we receive the agape of God, we are transformed into the beloved. Or let me say it this way: we're not transformed into the beloved, our identity is revealed that who we always were starts to show up. And this is why I kept saying, and throughout this whole year, we've been learning how to become empty, how to go into presence with the Father, how to become aware that God is all around us and with us everywhere. And once we start to accept that truth, the awareness of our belovedness shows up. So, beloved, from the sake of scriptures and how God puts it, is our identity, our identity awakened in God's delight. Want you to grab that. It's identity, our identity awakened in God's delight. And as we learn to sit in this belovedness and to accept all belovedness in God, then what happens? Love becomes embodied. And as we embody love, we transition to agape tos A-G-A-P-E-T-O-S. So that is love flowing outward from us. So it's given freely as an overflow, not an effort. So when you when we are in this series and you hear me say the word beloved, I want you to realize that it's our identity awakened in God's delight. So the foundation tonight is before anything else, you are beloved. I want you to catch that now because that's what this episode is about. It's before anything else you are beloved. So now let's jump in here. So if we if we go to scripture, we're gonna use Jesus as our example here. If we go to scripture, we go to Matthew 3, 17, what we're gonna find in Matthew 3, 17 is Jesus' basically first action, right? He's now 30 years old, and he is now transitioning. So this is this is the point where Jesus is moving into calling, is I think the best way. So I'm gonna start with 16. So it says, as soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and enlightening on him. And a lightning on him. Verse 17. This is it now. It says, and a voice from heaven said, This is my son whom I love. That word love is beloved. It says, In whom I beloved, with him I am well pleased. So let me read this out of the King James Version or the New King James Version. It says, and a voice came from heaven, you are my beloved son. With you, I am well pleased. Just let that settle. You are my beloved son, right? God is speaking to Jesus, and in the same way, after we get born again, we may not physically hear those words, but God is saying, You are beloved. The awareness of your belovedness in God comes alive now. But here's what I want you to see. When you read this, when I read this scripture, it says, You are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased. Don't those words sound the same? They sound alike, exactly like what God was saying when he spoke in creation. When God saw all that he had made and it was good. So well pleased means that we are operating in the what? The delight of God. So identity awakened in God's delight. Well pleased is in the delight of God. But here's what I want you to understand: Matthew 3, 17, Jesus hears these words before he performs any ministry. He has not preached a sermon, he has not healed the sick, he has not called a single disciple, and he has not even gone to fulfill destiny on the cross. So before Jesus does anything, this I want you to catch this now. Before he does anything, God the Father speaks identity. Grab this, grab a hold of this now. God speaks identity before anything. He didn't say it's not a worker, you're not a servant, you're not a miracle worker, you're not a teacher, and at this point, you're not a Messiah. Simply, God is saying, You are beloved. I just want you to let that settle. I want you to see in the gospels, the very first thing that God did was declare Jesus' belovedness. And in the same way, He has declared our belovedness. And here's what I want. I want to read something to you. So Henry Nguyen, which is a uh, he was a Harvard and Yale professor, contemporative in the, I don't know, 70s, 80s, 90s. And what transpired here, I want to read you something that he wrote because Henry Nguyen teaches that this is also our identity. He writes that the core of the spiritual journey is learning to hear God say to us that I mean what he said to Jesus, you are beloved and I delight in you. Not because of what you have done, but because here's the key, who God is. I want you to grab that. We are beloved before we believe it. That's in God. So here, I want to I want to just pinpoint in on the spiritual journey because the spiritual journey is simply learning to live from what we already are, or what is already true of us in the mind and the eyes of God. Grab that. What is already true? Now, you've noticed me say a couple of times here, already. So I want you to grab a hold of the paradox that we live in as Christians, because all Christians live in this paradox or this tension. And I've said it to you before: this tension is already yet becoming. So it's already and becoming. So we are already beloved, and we are becoming more like Christ every moment of the day. We're becoming more like the true self of who we are in God. So you use those two words, connect those words together. I am already beloved, and I am becoming my true self in Christ. So Henry Nguyen shared some more information. He also said something profoundly essential about the paradox of spiritual life that adds, in my opinion, a major insight into our journey, our spiritual journey. He said this: He said, without solitude, it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. Solitude, quiet, silence, right? Before God. And that's what we have been spending the last what five months? We've been talking about presence and being in God. But he says this: he says, yet we cannot live the spiritual life alone. There's another paradox, there's another tension. So what do we do? He says, although we need solitude to know God, we are required, we require a faith community to hold us accountable. We also need to learn how to listen to the word of God that's present in our hearts. And we also need spiritual disciplines like study, like prayer, like acts of service, all of the spiritual disciplines and spiritual practices to discern the word of God in Scripture. So there is a time and a place for us to be in solitude with God that we've learned so that God can speak to us spirit on spirit, where no words are transpiring. So the word is going beyond our intellect and it's going into our true self, which the more time we spend in presence with God in that place of solitude, in the inner room, right? Remember the room, we become renewed. And then the expression of our time spent in secret with the Father becomes the outward expression of our walked with Christ and the Father, empowered by the Holy Spirit. But I want you to catch what I what I just said. Let me read this again. Because without solitude, it is virtually impossible to live the spiritual life. And I said a spiritual life, but here's what I want you to get. This is where the world, the flesh, and the enemy, which is the unholy trinity, has been waging war against the church since its inception. See, we most people run from solitude. Most people run from presence. Why? Because it doesn't feel like it's productive. But yet God has designed this that it's in presence that we learn who we already are. Or let me say it this way: we learn who we were in God before we came through the womb of a woman to be born. Here's the thing: you could never search for something that you have not already experienced. You search for something, you're looking for it because you already know what it is. Have you ever thought about that? That divine dissatisfaction that's within us that we are trying to fill with other things. What is it? How do we know what it is? Because when we were in God, we experienced that. And then the comfort of the womb, God revealed that inerness to us, that closeness to us in the womb. And when we came out of the womb, the immediate dissatisfaction started to tie in. And over year one, year two, year three, when we were kids, we got further and further and further away from that place that we were in God. And I don't mean distance, I mean from an awareness and an attention standpoint. Because that's why the focus has been on being intentional and shifting our attention to the awareness of God's presence that's all around us and in us. Notice that. Without us realizing it, our attention went to other things. Right? We started to fill it up with ideas, with school, with work, with family, with vacations, with making money, with, you know, you know, relationships. All those things started to take the place of that sacred space that we had with God. But here's what I'm saying to you is however I believe that this is changing through the hidden river of God's agape because it has never stopped flowing or strengthening those who hear the call to rest in his presence. God is never without a remnant. And you're listening to me now because you are part of that remnant where you realize that your life is hidden in Christ and in God. It is when you're in that presence of God where you become and learn who you truly are. And here's the thing: it is a journey. It's not a one-time thing. And what we are learning here is on that journey, we may have times or seasons where it feels like fall, like we're in fall right now. Fall, in essence, is the time of rest for the earth. There's no production going on. The ground is resting, the ground is restoring, the ground is getting back the nourishment that it lost when it produced the harvest. So where we are now is God is showing us our rhythm of life and how do we go through our winter, spring, summer, and fall aspects of the journey of our spiritual life. Because in a in a year, we go through all four of those seasons in nature. But most people don't even equate the seasons that we go through in our spiritual journey. They don't look at it from that perspective. And God taught us in Romans, right? That nature reveals the very glory in the presence of God. And seasons actually reveal to us the spiritual journey or the walk that we have with God. So let's keep moving because I want to focus on Jesus as being the model of belovedness. So Jesus models belovedness before ministry. So if we go over to Matthew 4 and 1, here's what we're going to find right here. And this is where it's going to get a little powerful here, but I'm going to be, I'm going to cause you to think and I'm going to talk, I'm going to try to break up some dry, fallow ground and get some water of that, water of the word on that, so that we can get some more fertiless going. So four and one says, immediately, here's what I want you to catch. Immediately after the Father speaks this identity, this belovedness over Jesus, something decisive happens. And Matthew four and one says, then Jesus was led by the Spirit, capital S, which is the Holy Spirit, into the wilderness. So let me ask you this question: Who led Jesus into the wilderness or the desert? Wilderness slash desert. And let me ask you, and why was Jesus led into the wilderness? Well, let me keep reading because I'm gonna so if we read four and one and I keep going, look what what look what people will tell you. It says, Jin, then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. I want you to grab that. Because most people are taught, most people were taught that Jesus was led into the desert or into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Exactly what Matthew shows us right here. But that is not the whole picture or truth of the matter. And this aligns more closely with God's word. Right? Because here's the key. James taught us, James one thirteen taught us that God cannot be tempted with evil, nor does God tempt anyone. Did you catch that? So there had to be another reason for Jesus to go to the wilderness. So let me ask again, I'll ask you, why did the Holy Spirit lead Jesus to the wilderness immediately after the Father declared he was his beloved son? And I want you to also think about Paul was led into the Arabian desert or wilderness for three years after he got converted, after he had his experience with Jesus on the Damascus road and he got his sight, the Spirit of God led Paul into the desert for three years. And here's what I want to bring to your attention. Because according to ancient Hebrew tradition, the wilderness was the place that people went to experience God and to learn to rest in his presence and to learn from God, from him. I want you to get that now. Moses experienced God where in the wilderness on top of Mount Hebron. So, yes, he was being tempted, the scripture says, or tested, but immediately the Spirit of God led Jesus to the wilderness. Testing means for me is to so that he can be proved or strengthened in his belovedness. I want you to grab this now. Because out in the wilderness, there is very little food in the wilderness. There is very little vegetation in the wilderness. So that means in the wilderness or the desert of our lives, we are there to learn to what? We're there to learn to rest in God, to learn to be in presence with God and to learn from God. So now let's go back and read Matthew 4:1 with this understanding. So it says, Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. Now, watch this. After forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. You got this now? Verse three says, the tempter came to him and said, Wait a minute, he went to the wilderness, and it says immediately to be tested, but the enemy did not show up until after forty days. That gives us an indication of what was being transpired in those forty days. God was strengthening Jesus' belovedness. God was developing or showing him his belovedness in him in the wilderness. Imano on imano, like one-on-one, with no distractions around him, God was there. But here's what I want you to understand. This is so powerful. Because if you look at the scripture, we have been taught that the testing came because of verse three. I mean, because of verse two. It says, after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. Verse three says, the tempter came to him and said, If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread. I want you to grass, I want you to grab this now. I'm about to throw something at you that I want you to hold on to. Because if you grab this now, it'll change your walk with God. It'll it'll awaken the belovedness. Because here's the key. What is it? It's identity. The first thing the devil said to Jesus was, if you are the Son of God, I want you to grab that. Because the devil came at identity, came at his belovedness in the same way the enemy comes at our identity. Because if we don't know who we are in God, we are subject to do anything. And I want to remind you back in Genesis chapter three, verse one, right? When the enemy, when Satan came to Eve and Adam, what did he say? He said, Did God really say you must not? Came right at it, came right at her identity and right at Adam's identity. And here's what I want you to understand this. Satan's method, he always comes to cast doubt because doubt are the seeds, and unbelief is the harvest of the seeds of doubt. Oh, grab that. Doubt is the seed and unbelief is the harvest. Once you understand that when doubt, when the enemy comes, he's coming to attack our identity. He's coming to attack what we know in God. He's coming to attack. Will God supply all my needs? Will God heal you? Oh, are you beloved? I want you to grab this now because the enemy does not attack Jesus' power, does not attack anything about Christ. He attacks his identity. Why? Because our identity is who we are in Christ. And this is why we see in the world today that the world, humanity, is having an identity crisis. And it is also spilled over in the church. It's spilled over in the church in the form of ethnicity, in the form of denominations, in the form of intellectualism. All of that stuff is coming at the person from an identity perspective. But God said, wait a minute, hold up. First and foremost, you're beloved. Before your ethnicity, before your social economic status, before your gender, before your sexuality, before any of that stuff, you are beloved. And once you understand that and you hold on to that for dear life, the enemy loses power. Because that's the key. So the enemy does not attack Jesus' power. He attacks his identity in the same way he attacks ours. Why? Because if identity is shaken, everything else wavers. If our identity is shaken, everything else wavers. So the next time you think about this, or someone's coming, or something's coming at you, your identity is your beloved. That's it. I'm beloved. Jesus resists not by striving. I want you to grab this. Did you catch it? He didn't try to prove himself. He didn't try, he was not striving, but resting in the voice he has already heard. And I'm so grateful that God didn't share with us what actually happened in the 40 days in the wilderness, what Jesus did. Why? Because then we would have actually just got it all messed up, in my opinion. But what we can see is through the life of Jesus, we get to see what he learned about his belovedness. And that's part of what we're going to go in. We're going to use Jesus as a model as we keep going. And we want to see Jesus' rhythm, his life rhythm, his sacred rhythm, the continuous cycle that Jesus was on, which I've been telling us about. Pause, let go, return. So basically, in the pause, we go into the inner room. We spend time with the Father, right? And that we also let go of our desires and the world's desires, because in the presence of the Father, we are empty before God. There's no words. And anytime a word or a thought comes to us that's contrary to what we came for, we use our sacred word to bring us back to presence. That's sinering prayer. And when we come out of centering prayer, right? Pause, let go, return. So then we return back to what we were doing. But we constantly have to keep going into that same rhythm. And we will see this as we go further on in this. I'm going to take my time with this. We will see Jesus consistently pausing, entering in, letting go, returning. So just remember that. Jesus resists not by striving, but by resting in the voice he had already heard. He does not prove who he is. Jesus never responds by reproving who he is. And we spend as humans, most of us spend most of over half or three-quarters of our life trying to prove who we are by what we do or what we have. But Jesus simply remains who he is, beloved. This is the first movement of the spiritual life. And I know we didn't get this a lot of times. We didn't get this preciseness when we got born again, but thanks be to God that the agape, the hidden river of God's agape, was surrounding us and protecting us and guiding us in all things. So the first movement of the spiritual life is this we do not earn belovedness. We awaken to it. Yes, I'm letting that settle. And I just pictured, I just saw the apostle Paul meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus, and he was awakened to his belovedness. And there was a period of time, three days, where Paul was in darkness and scales covered his eyes. So Jesus, in those three days, God was working on what? Bringing his inner eyesight back into alignment so that he can become aware of his belovedness that's in Christ. And immediately after Paul, the scales come out. Where does Paul go? He goes to the wilderness. So I'm saying to us, we should not be fearful of the desert or the wilderness. If the Spirit of God is leading us into the wilderness, into this dry place that's with God, God is saying, embrace the dry place. But if we bring ourselves to a dry place because of something that we've done, that's totally different. The key here was God, the Holy Spirit, was leading Jesus into the wilderness. So it had to have a significant divine spiritual importance. So now that we understand we don't earn our belovedness, we become awakened to it. So I want you to just stop what you're doing right now. I want you to take a slow breath in with me. I want you to breathe in, and as you inhale, I want you to think, I am beloved. And just let it out. Let's do that again one more time. As you breathe in, I am beloved. And as you exhale now, says, I do not have to earn it. Slowly. I want you to remember this. Inhale, I am beloved. On the exhale, you can say, I don't have to earn it. Let that truth rest in your hearts without argument. Let it abide in the forefront of your mind. Because why this matters for us is most of us have been formed to believe that identity is achieved by accomplishments. By obedience, by success, by repetition, I mean reputation, by the approval of others, even within the church, and by how we are seen in the community or in our ministry or in the church. But the gospel reverses this entirely. I want you to grab a hold of what I'm about to say. This is important for you. The kingdom moves from identity to action. The world moves from action to identity. The false self says, I am what I do. I am what I have. The true self in Christ says, I do what I do because I am beloved. See, this single reversal is liberation. It's freedom. It's the eyes of the blind being open. It's freeing the captors. It's healing the sick, raising the dead. That one sentence, this understanding of the false self to the true self, I do what I do because I am beloved is liberation. And here's what I want you to grab a hold of. Where have you been? I want you to think about this now. This is your, this is what you're taking away with you. Where have you been trying to earn what God has already spoken over you? Let me say that again. Where have you been trying to earn what God has already spoken over you? I want you to take a moment, take time to sit in this, take this with you after you're done listening. Name it honestly. No shame, just presence. God will meet you there, will meet you right in the midst of that. Name what it is that you've been trying to earn. Put it out there before God. Lord, I've been trying to earn this. There's no shame in it. It's just presence. And God meets you right there. So as I get ready to wrap this up, let me pray. Father, before anything else, before any callings, any assignments, any ministry, before any healings or any breakthrough or maturity. Speak to our hearts the words you spoke to Jesus. You are my beloved. I delight in you. Holy Spirit, remind us that we are beloved. Let this truth take root within us. Let this truth reshape how we see ourselves and others. Let this truth become our home, our resting place. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, listen, hey, in the next episode, we're going to move forward from beloved to chosen. We will explore what it means not only to be loved by God, but to be wanted by God, to be pursued by God. Until then, remember, breathe, rest, pause, return. I mean, pause, let go, return. So before anything else, you are beloved. And until next time, keep living daily for Christ.