{"id":13027,"date":"2019-09-06T15:30:14","date_gmt":"2019-09-06T23:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/?p=13027"},"modified":"2019-12-10T19:38:15","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T03:38:15","slug":"god-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/god-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"God Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>From an early age Jesus knew who He was. He was only 12 when Joseph and Mary questioned His whereabouts and He simply said, \u201cWhy did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father\u2019s business?\u201d (Luke 2:49).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shortly after His <g class=\"gr_ gr_5 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Punctuation only-ins replaceWithoutSep\" id=\"5\" data-gr-id=\"5\">baptism<\/g> Jesus was confronted by the devil, who cast doubt on His divine identity with the challenge, \u201cIf you are the Son of God&hellip;\u201d (Luke 4:3, 9).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sometime later, when Jesus returned to His hometown of Nazareth, those familiar with Him and His family tried to impose their own identity on Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIs not this the carpenter\u2019s son? is not His mother called Mary? and His brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?\u201d (Matthew 13:55).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then there were the religious leaders who attempted again and again to define this miracle-working, gospel-preaching, tradition-breaking Teacher in a way that would destroy His God-identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>\u2026those familiar with Him and His family tried to impose their own identity on Christ.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBut when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow does not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils&#8221; (Matthew 12:24).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unfortunately, there were even times when Christ\u2019s own disciples tried to undermine His God-identity. Peter told Jesus that His God-identity did not include going to the cross to take the penalty of the world\u2019s sins. As Jesus explained to His disciples this foundational gospel truth, \u201cPeter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, \u2018Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!\u2019 But He turned and said to Peter, \u2018Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men\u2019\u201d (Matthew 16:22, 23).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All through His life, Christ\u2019s God-identity was attacked, yet He knew exactly who He was. Do you know who you are? The reason why Jesus rebuked Peter so strongly is <g class=\"gr_ gr_12 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear Grammar multiReplace\" id=\"12\" data-gr-id=\"12\">because His<\/g> God-identity as our <g class=\"gr_ gr_10 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace\" id=\"10\" data-gr-id=\"10\">sin bearer<\/g> has given you a new identity. In Christ, you are a child of God, beloved, one in whom God is well pleased (see Matthew 3:17). Jesus lived and died for you. He refused to compromise His God-identity so that you could live your God-identity as a child of the king. Christ\u2019s God-identity was lived so that your God-identity could be too. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From an early age Jesus knew who He was. He was only 12 when Joseph and Mary questioned His whereabouts and He&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[232],"class_list":["post-13027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-devotional","tag-newsletter"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/God-Identity.jpg?fit=2560%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paAh8r-3o7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13027"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13029,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13027\/revisions\/13029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightbearers.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}