Paul flirts with most Christians' notions of blasphemy while writing to the Ephesians. He says, "Be imitators of God, just as earthly children imitate their fathers."
    Imitating God? That sounds crazy, right? Perhaps it is. But it is possible. God instructs us to imitate Him because He knows that we can. Imitating God will be an impossible feat if you are caught up in your earthly imperfection, thinking of yourself as fallen man, or a sinner.
   But remember: God made you in His image and likeness. He made you to be like Him—to think how He thinks, talk how He talks, and acts how He acts.
    Paul explains exactly how we are supposed to imitate God. Not through effort. Not through striving. Not through modeling a personality. We are to become imitators of God in the same way little boys end up imitating their fathers. They don't try to do it. They don't carefully study behavior and then try their best to emulate it. This is not a What-Would-Jesus-Do situation. A child cannot help but imitate his father, because especially in our developmental stages of life, we always become what we behold.
   The Greek word Paul uses here for the word "imitate" means "to take on the image of."
    I used to drive my sisters crazy by "imitating" them, mocking them, repeating what they were saying. This is not the understanding Paul meant us to have.
    Think of a chameleon. This fascinating creature is skilled at "taking on the image of" its surroundings. A chameleon is an excellent imitator, in the sense that Paul utilized the word. A chameleon assimilates the identity of whatever it spends the most time around. If you spend time with God, you will begin to look like Him. You can't help it.
    Furthermore, spending time with God doesn't just mean reading the Bible, going to church, and doing daily devotionals. If you are a Christian, you can't possibly spend more time with God than you already are, because the "fullness of the Godhead [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) dwells in you" right now! You have the nature of Christ Jesus, and you no longer life, because Jesus lives in you! You are already surrounded by and fully indwelt by the presence of God. It is in your nature to demonstrate His character and personality. And this is perfect alignment—this is the Kingdom.
  Remove from your mind the notion that you cannot be a successful imitator of God. The first step toward living in this wonderful reality is to accept the possibility. Then, believe. You will automatically emulate the individuals you admire. So dwell on God, and think to yourself, I can do that!
   And if you suspect that it might be prideful to want to be like God, remember, He's the One who made you "in His likeness." The desire to be like your heavenly Father was given to you by Him in the first place! To resist that desire is prideful. To embrace it is humility.
   After a while you'll begin to see His nature creeping through your personality. You'll do things and say things and think thoughts that will astound you. You'll say, That wasn't like me! Normally I'd get so upset about that! But it's change, coming straight from the Spirit inside you, transforming you from the inside out. That way you don't have to try and curb your behavior through external rules and regulations. Change won't come just because you want it bad enough, or try hard enough. No, it will be natural change. It won't involve your willpower, but your nature. When Jesus commanded holiness, He wasn't talking about changing your behavior, He was talking about changing your nature.
   Inward transformation always leads to external change. This is the only change that is authentic, the only change that lasts. So think about God. Align with Him. Feel gratitude for all the wonderful aspects of Himself that make Him who He is. And you'll automatically see yourslef following in His footsteps, in the same way Jesus did as He walked the earth two thousand years ago.
    A final note: Whenever I have taught this message, I'm inevitably confronted by someone who says that this was the original deception of the devil, trying to convince man that he could be like God. This perspective is based on what the serpent said in the Garden: "If you eat this fruit, you will surely be like God." First of all, it's important to remember the the devil is a liar and "the father of lies." To quote Satan as part of your argument is simply stupid. The original lie wasn't that if Adam ate the fruit he would be like God; the lie was actually that Adam wasn't already like God. The serpent convinced Adam that God was withholding something that Adam already possessed. This is at the root of every lie of Satan, from then till now. If the Liar can convince you that you are lacking something, that you don't already have it all, that Jesus's work wasn't actually complete, then he can convince you into powerlessness. He can extinguish your light through this deception. No, friends, Adam was made exactly like God, and the fruit didn't make Adam like God, it shoved a wedge between God and man—a wedge that existed solely in Adam's mind. Man forgot that he was like God, and Jesus came to restore that revelation, not only that we are like God, but that we are "partakers of the divine nature." We are just as much God as Jesus is, for our natures have been fused with the nature of the Father through the blood of Christ.
    Satan's attempts are not to convince us that we are like God. Satan's strategy is to convince us that we are not like G

I have spent the past several weeks reading only the Gospels. Tackling a single chapter a day, I've felt an emphasis on the importance of meditation rather than intellectual study, allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal the Father's heart behind each word. The experience has been nothing less than exhilarating. The revelation that has impacted me the most is how clearly Jesus demonstrated the true Gospel in His ministry.
    The Bible is full of history, rules, poetry, prophecy, personal instruction, and wisdom. Written over the course of thousands of years, much of it seems difficult to reconcile. Theologians have pored over the Scriptures endlessly, and will continue to do so for the rest of time. Myriad disagreements and disputes have arisen regarding almost every issue in the Bible. From baptism to the Trinity, from Original Sin to who wrote the Book of Hebrews, quarrels are congregant around the pages of Scripture. So how can we make sense of it all? How do we know who is right or wrong? Should we become trained scholars ourselves, dissecting the Holy Book like a biology assignment? Perhaps we shouldn't even try—leave it to the professionals, instead.
    Ever since Adam and Eve's Eden exile, mankind has sought to understand the Divine, sweating out their theories and speculations. Who is God? Why is God? How is God? Protestant denominations are still being formed as a result of these disagreements, while Catholics are encouraged to simply believe what is taught by "the Mother Church" in Rome. From all around the world, through all the pages of history, people are trying to figure out God.
    If you've ever spent time in the Old Testament, you can easily see that the Jewish faith was slackened with error. These people, God's chosen race, were continually at odds with the Creator. Idol-making, covenant-breaking, Law-obsessed descendants of Abraham were certainly sure of their religion, as evidenced by the arrogance of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes. Yet even their own sects were heavily divided, scattered and confused—organized disorganization. Strangely enough, the same can be said about the Church today.
    So amidst all of their wanderings, suppositions, and hypotheses, God sent them a depiction of Himself, transcending all the ambiguous words of their Scriptures. And in doing so, He gave a clear picture of His nature, not to the Jews alone, but to all of us. What God was unable to communicate through words, He plainly communicated through the Word--Jesus Christ.
    You see, words are futile. Every language in the world—Hebrew, Greek, English—has its limitations, is ripe for misapprehension. It's difficult to "figure out God" when all one has to work with are the same languages that were deliberately confused by God Himself in an admitted attempt to divide, not unite. God scattered the children of men from the Tower of Babel by segregating their languages, preventing all occasion for inter-correspondence. The Bible says He "confused the language of the whole earth" (Genesis 11:9 NASB). So with humanity's muddled lingual abilities, is it any wonder that the Old Testament Scripture became so convoluted, so ineffective at drawing men to the Father, at revealing His love for them?
    But what was unclear through the Law and the Prophets was forever clarified by the coming of the Son of God—Jesus made flesh. He came to set right the misunderstandings, to illuminate the darkness, and most of all, to reveal the character and nature of the unseen God. Jesus said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9 NASB). He didn't claim that "He who has read the Bible has seen the Father." In fact, Jesus never even claimed the Old Testament as His own word. He frequently said, "It is written in your Law.... You have heard it said.... You have heard that the ancients were told...but I say..." (see Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28, 31-32). Remember, Jesus told the Jews, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life" (John 5:39-40 NASB). I've heard many teachers claim that "time spent in the Word is time spent with Jesus." But Jesus's own words here clearly invalidate that assertion. You can know the Book inside-out and still miss Him entirely. The scriptures teach us about God ("they testify about me"), but the apostle Paul said, "[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation" (Colossians 1:15 NASB, emphasis added).
    Interestingly, the Book of John says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:1, 14 NASB). The "Word" of which John speaks is not referring to the Bible. He is speaking of Jesus, who "became flesh." Nowhere are we instructed to believe that the Bible is God or that it is the perfect expression of Him—the "image of the invisible." I am not minimizing the Bible, not in the least. But I am suggesting that for a completely accurate, inerrant understanding of the Father, we go straight to Jesus, God incarnate, rather than a book that Jesus Himself only claimed was "about" Him. In this way we can avoid making the same mistake as the Jews.
    What the Scriptures were unable to accomplish due to the frailty of human language—as well as men's inability to discern and believe them in the first place—God did by sending His Son. Any uncertainty or conflict in our understanding of the Bible can be easily resolved by looking at the Word incarnate: Jesus. As Bill Johnson says, Jesus Christ is perfect theology. Any notion you have of God that cannot be clearly seen in the life and ministry of Christ should be scrutinized. There are times when I simply cannot understand certain scriptures, cannot reconcile what the Book says with who I know my Father to be. In these moments, I take my confusion to the throne, to Jesus. I say, "Jesus, I may not understand this event, these words, this story. Though I could explain it theologically, I still don't understand how God-Who-Is-Love could have acted this way in the Old Testament." Then my intellectual uncertainty becomes swallowed up in the beautiful revelation of Jesus. Jesus the man. Jesus, the image of the invisible.
    We are not called to piece God together using various Bible verses. For many years, archeologists have been unearthing ancient dinosaur fossils, assembling the bones in an attempt to replicate the creature as it was during its life. Recently, the authenticity of many of these replicas has been challenged. They have discovered that bones attached as teeth were actually talons, that jaw bones should have been fastened to the shoulder, and other misunderstandings. Finding the fossils is one thing; assembling them to accurately replicate the real dinosaurs can be educated guesswork. Sometimes I believe that Christians try and use the verses of the bible, attempting to assemble God, to replicate who He was in Bible days.
    However the best replica of God is Jesus, His Son. The books of the Law and the prophets are not written for us to have a better understanding of God. In fact, though we can glean many things from these ancient texts, they were not written for us at all! Listen to what the Bible says:

In many separate revelations [each of which set forth a portion of the Truth] and in different ways God spoke to [our] forefathers in and by the prophets, [but] in the last of these days He has spoken to us in [the person of a] Son.... He is the sole expression of the glory of God [the Light-being, the out-raying or radiance of the divine], and He is the perfect imprint and very image of [God's] nature.... (Hebrews 1:1-3 AMP)

    Notice the contrast the writer makes: The prophets spoke to our forefathers, but to us, in the last days, God has spoken differently. His revelation to us is through the person of the Son, Jesus Christ. The scripture goes on to say that Jesus is the sole (only) expression of God's glory and nature. What this means is that, if all you had to go on was the Gospels, the stories of Jesus, you would have a pure understanding and depiction of the Father. "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9 NASB). I believe that though the Old Testament paints some clear and difficult pictures of God's nature, if they are not also seen in the person of Jesus, you're misunderstanding them. Let me put it this way: You are not obligated to believe anything about God that isn't seen in Jesus. If you want to see the invisible, look at the visible. Jesus is God, made perfectly visible. His life was the ultimate demonstration of the Father's heart. Not only that, His life isn't over! He is still living today!
    Let me encourage you to spend time in the Gospels this year. Read them over and over again. Meditate on them. Visualize the stories and recollections. Picture yourself there, in Galilee. Allow yourself to see Jesus speaking His words. Interact with Him. See Him healing the sick and teaching you to do the same. Envision him forgiving the adulterous woman, feeding the multitudes, and spending time with little children. If you want to know God, start here. By filling your mind and fixing your eyes on Jesus, the character and nature of the Father will become fully actualized inside you. Seeing Jesus as He really is will cause you to imitate Him. "We will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is" (1 John 3:2 NASB). God doesn't want to be studied; He wants to be known. Jesus is the only way for us to truly know the Father.

What is the Gospel of the Kingdom? The word Gospel is haphazard in today's world, describing everything from the basic message of Christianity to a certain style of music. I recently heard a pop-artist announce that she was going to sing a "gospel song." She proceeded to croon, Aretha Franklin-style, how she met a guy at the club, they were drinkin' and dancin' it up, and he was going to take her home toniiiiight. And this was marketed as "Gospel."
    But the true Gospel Jesus came to demonstrate wasn't a doctrine, a theological concept, or a style of music. He came preaching the "Gospel of the Kingdom." The word Gospel means "good news." Jesus came to Earth to tell everyone the good news, and to teach them to go around preaching this same good news. The good news—the Gospel—is stated in conjunction with the words the Kingdom (see Matthew 4:23). Jesus's good news has to do with God's Kingdom, or to use a word relevant to our culture, God's government.
    The Old Testament prophet Isaiah talked about Jesus's future arrival, saying, "For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders.... There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace" (Isaiah 9:6-7 NASB). Much later, Isaiah articulated the details of this government:
    "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to prisoners; to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord" (Isaiah 61:1-2a NASB).
    At the beginning of Jesus's ministry, He opened to this scripture and read it aloud: "'The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord'" (Luke 4:18-19 NASB). This passage clearly shows us what Jesus's anointing, or calling, was. This is the true good news. It consists most faithfully of good news!
    We have been told that the Gospel message sounds like this: "Repent! You are going to hell if you don't turn from your wicked ways and accept the Lord!" But this cannot be the true Gospel message because it is not good news! Good news is not that you're going to hell, unless! This common interpretation violates the very definition of the word gospel. We have been preaching bad news and calling it good news. We must stop doing this.
    The word repent literally means, "Change your mind." Indeed, this word has been misconstrued to mean, "Weep and cry out to God, declaring that you are a sinner, asking for His forgiveness." But the true message of repentance is simple: Think different. This is a word that today's Church must start heeding. We must begin to think differently about the message Jesus came to preach. In addition, the Gospel has nothing to do with telling people to stop sinning. This instruction is moot. They can't stop sinning! That's why God had to show up in the first place!
    The true good news sounds like this: Your behavior is not separating you from God, unless you believe it is. God is not angry with you. You aren't on His bad side. Change your way of thinking, of believing, of relating to the Father.
    As you read this, you might be thinking, But our sin does separate us from God.
    This couldn't be further from the truth. Jesus came to show us the way—relationship, not behavior—is the substance of salvation. All throughout the Bible we see that sin wasn't able to keep man and God apart. This notion was developed by hierarchical Church leaders in order to try and control society; it was never God's heart. From Adam to Enoch to Abraham to Moses to David to Jesus to Saul of Tarsis, sin couldn't separate humans from divinity! Even before Jesus died on the Cross, God made it crystal clear that "He wasn't counting sins against you," and "He remembers your sins no more." He even removes them from you, "Casting them as far as the east is from the west."
    Friends, if this was the good news proclaimed in the Old Testament, how much more GOOD must the GOOD NEWS of the New Covenant be? I COULD GET UP AND DANCE JUST THINKING ABOUT IT!
    Even those people who aren't Christians, who haven't accepted Jesus yet, are just as forgiven as you and I are! The Bible says, "[Jesus] Himself is the propitiation (satisfaction and removal) for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world" (1 John 2:2 NASB). It couldn't be any plainer than this. Jesus's forgiveness was not only for those who would receive Him, but for every single person on Earth!
    The apostle Paul teaches this exact same Gospel. He wrote, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation" (2 Corinthians 5:19 NASB). Paul tells us that our job of preaching the Gospel, which he calls the ministry or word of reconciliation, is to tell people this good news: "World: God, through Jesus, has reconciled you to Himself. He is not counting your trespasses against you!"
    It doesn't matter who it is—a prostitute, drug dealer, or thief—God is not counting their sins against them. Are you bold enough to tell them that message? The real good news? This Gospel has rarely been preached. All you have to do is try to talk to a stranger about Jesus. Their perspective is always the same: They know that they're going to hell because they're a sinner, and they will never be able to be good enough to merit Heaven. What this response demonstrates is that few people actually understand the message of the Gospel. If an unbeliever still believes that his or her sins are keeping her out of Heaven, they have not heard the good news, the word of reconciliation.
    Now, if everyone on Earth is forgiven and reconciled to God, does that mean that everyone is going to Heaven? Unfortunately, no. You see, having your sins forgiven is not what gives you access to Heaven. Hell will be filled with forgiven people. The Bible teaches that because of sin, unbelievers suffer from spiritual death. While sin itself has been forgiven, unless a person accepts Jesus and is born again (see John 3:3), they remain spiritually dead. Spiritually dead people cannot enter the Kingdom of God. They must receive new life in order to partake of the Kingdom. They are reconciled to God even without accepting Jesus. His death purchased forgiveness for absolutely everyone. However, forgiveness is not salvation. You can be totally forgiven and still dead—it doesn't do you much good. Paul said it well: "For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life" (Romans 5:10 NASB).
    Do you see what Paul is saying here? Clearly, in the mind of the greatest preacher of the Gospel ever recorded, reconciliation is separate from salvation. Whether or not someone receives Jesus, becoming born again and receiving new life, all people everywhere are reconciled!
    Think of it this way: Because of Adam's transgression, all men were brought into this world spiritually dead—sinners. Jesus, the last Adam, reversed Adam's sin, resulting in the opposite effect: The same all men have been reconciled, sin reversed. The only thing left to do is receive this forgiveness. This results in new life, salvation. If we would quit preaching condemnation and fear to the unsaved, if we would begin preaching the true Gospel of the Kingdom—"Good news, everyone: You are all set right with the Father!"—we would start seeing the monumental results that Jesus promised. In addition, the signs and wonders that accompany the Gospel would be far more frequent because we would be preaching the real Gospel! Miracles endorse the Good News, and it's no wonder we haven't seen very many miracles. The Church has failed to preach Good News! Jesus's ministry was clear. Let's examine how He presented the Gospel, and use that as our model. When we do the same things He does, we'll get the same results He gets!

    Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few." (Matthew 9:35-37 NASB)

    When Jesus saw all these broken, sick, sinners, He did not warn them, commanding them to weep and cry out for God's forgiveness! This so-called gospel was unknown to Him. Rather, He preached the message of reconciliation. He told them that their sin were forgiven. To prove it, to demonstrate God's good will and compassion, He healed their physical ailments as well. He didn't feel angry at them; He wasn't giving ultimatums; He had compassion. He wanted to shepherd them. Jesus recognized this key reality: The harvest was plentiful—people were ripe for salvation, eager and ready to hear the Good News. But sadly, those who were willing to preach actual good news, were few.
    Friends, I believe we are in this same place today. There are billions of people who simply do not know the Good News, that they have already been reconciled to the Father. They still feel like they have to do something to be forgiven. But Christianity isn't about what we do, it's about what God did! When we preach this true Gospel, the word of Christ, faith will blossom in people's hearts (see Romans 10:17). Unfortunately, the workers are few. There are few people willing to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom today.         Will you be one of them?

In the book of Luke, we see Jesus sending out His twelve disciples, giving them "power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases" (Luke 9:1). Then, a chapter later, He "chose and appointed seventy others and sent them out" (Luke 10:1). A while later, "the seventy returned with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name!" (Luke 10:17). And to these same seventy, Jesus confirmed, "Behold! I have given you authority and power to trample upon serpents and scorpions, and [physical and mental strength and ability] over all the power that the enemy [possesses]; and nothing shall in any way harm you" (Luke 10:19). Remember, these seventy people weren't even apostles. Yet Jesus still empowered and sent them with full authority! Perhaps this point was spoken most concisely in John 14:12:
    "I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, if anyone steadfastly believes in Me, he will himself be able to do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these, because I go to the Father."
    Jesus isn't talking about His twelve apostles, not even the seventy! He isn't referring to Catholic saints. He is clearly talking about "anyone" who believes in Him! That means that no believer is off the hook! No one, including the minister with whom I was having this discussion, has a right to live a supernaturally powerless lifestyle.
    Before He went to the Cross, Jesus prayed "for all those who will ever come to believe." He told His Father, "Just as You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world" (John 17:18). And after His resurrection He again confirmed, "[Just] as the Father has sent Me forth, so I am sending you" (John 20:21). He couldn't have made Himself any clearer. Right before His ascension, He promised that "these attesting signs will accompany those who believe; in My name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new languages; they will pick up serpents; and [even] if they drink anything deadly, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will get well" (Mark 16:17-18).
    Jesus did not say that signs might accompany, or will sometimes accompany. He said—without mincing words—that these signs will accompany those who believe. What this tells us is that if signs and wonders aren't accompanying your ministry, you're not believing. Now, a lack of miracles is no reason to feel condemned—your personal value and worth isn't tied to your works, and the Father loves you and treasures you even if you never performed a single miracle!—but there is no escaping the fact that Jesus didn't leave room in His theology for powerless Christians. Perhaps you didn't know any better until now, but God wants to use your hands to heal the sick! To cast out demons! To perform unusual miracles! Jesus didn't have anything on a child of God, surrendered to God, allowing the Holy Spirit to operate freely in his or her life!
    Look at it this way: Miracles were not brought on the scene when Jesus showed up. Many of God's people lived supernaturally in the Old Testament. Moses, Aaron, Elijah, Elisha, Ezekiel and others performed incredible miracles! And they were not God, either. To say that Jesus had power because He was God is ignorant. Men from Genesis to Revelation have performed miracles—imperfect, sinful, unqualified men who had nothing going for them except the power of the Holy Spirit. That's the same power that has been given to you and me.
    When you read about Peter and Stephen and Paul performing miracles, don't be a spectator. Dive head-first into the supernatural potential of your inner man! Those men were no greater, no more qualified than today's Christian. Whether you're a pastor, doctor, or plumber, you're greater than Moses, Elijah, and Elisha! Jesus said it Himself: "Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he" (Matthew 11:11). John was greater than any of the Old Covenant prophets, but even if you're the least of all Christians, you're even greater than John the Baptizer! However, Paul himself identified himself as the least of the saints (see Ephesians 3:8), which obviously makes each one of us greater than Paul.
    Now it's not really about who is greater than whom; my point is simply to say that no matter how you slice it, you can't escape the truth: We are just as capable, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to do everything that Jesus, Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Peter, and Paul did—and even more! Next time you hear someone use the lame excuse, "Oh, but that was Jesus," Tell them the truth. His miraculous humanity proves that we were not intended to sit on the sidelines, impressed by non-participatory. Ask you heavenly Father to reveal this truth to you in a fresh way, and then be willing—make yourself available—to be used in a miraculous fashion!
    To conclude, I'd like to share a portion from the popular bestseller, The Shack. In this novel, a man is given the opportunity to speak face to face with God, who is explaining the humanity of Jesus Christ:

    Jesus is fully human. Although he is also fully God, he has never drawn upon his nature as God to do anything. He has only lived out of his relationship with me, living in the very same manner that I desire to be in relationship with every human being. He is just the first to do it to the uttermost—the first to absolutely trust my life within him, the first to believe in my love and my goodness without regard for appearance or consequence. (Wm. Paul Young, The Shack (Newbury Park: Windblown Media, 2007), pp.99-100)