Year 4, Day 164: Deuteronomy 13

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Father, Identity

• Father: This is the pinnacle of the Covenant Triangle.  God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.  We get our identity through Him.
• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

Deuteronomy is absolutely another chapter where the covenant triangle can be seen very clearly.  This chapter is all about beginning with who is in our Up position.  Do we worship the Father?  Or do we let other people lead us away into the worship of other things?  Is our focus in life on looking for the hand of the Father working within us, through us, and in the world around us?  Do we stop and give God the glory when things go well?  When a person around us does an incredible job, do we give God the glory for equipping that person in the first place?  Essentially, this chapter causes us to pause and ask, do we really believe and live as though God is at the source of all life?

But this chapter goes beyond that point as well.  From where does our identity come?  When someone tries to pull us in a direction that is focused on other things besides God, do we follow?  Are we tempted to focus on the desires of our own heart and use God as the emergency backup crutch when things go wrong?  It is so easy to be pulled away from God.  That is all the more reason to make sure that our identity is truly coming from the Father and that we stay obedient to that identity.

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Year 4, Day 91: Leviticus 2

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Covenant Triangle

• Covenant Triangle: The covenant triangle is about relationship. The Father gives identity while our identity shows us those things in which God has called us into obedience.  The covenant triangle is about relationship.

In a moment of surprise, we can see that the grain offering is actually about relationship.  This isn’t really the surprise.  It makes sense that offerings to God would be about relationship.

What is a surprise is the manner in which the focus on relationship comes through the text.  The relationship actually comes through the most clearly in the idea that the sacrifices are salted.  In several places in scripture we can see that covenants between humanity and God are called covenants of salt.  Salt is a reminder of our relationship with God.

What is the relationship with God all about?  Relationship with God is about understanding His ways and His desire for our life.  It is about understanding what God would have us do and then living it out.  It is about humbling our ways for His ways.  It is about submission and listening and being open to God.  That is what the salt is all about in the sacrifices to God as prescribed in Leviticus.

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Year 4, Day 65: Exodus 16

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Father, Identity, Obedience

• Father: This is the pinnacle of the Covenant Triangle.  God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.  We get our identity through Him.
• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.
• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from Father.

Today I couldn’t help but think about the concept of identity.  As I read through the account of the grumbling of the Hebrew people I can’t help but see myself among them.  God sets me up with a life of little want.  Yet how much do I still grumble?  God gives me what I need, but is that really the identity that I want?  Do I really want what God wants for me, or do I struggle making my own identity based on my own hopes and dreams?

Or take all those people in the story who are running around not following directions.  Those people who save some manna for the next day even though they are told not to do so.  Or those people who go out to collect manna on the seventh day when they are told to collect double on the prior day because there wouldn’t be anything the next day.  How am I any different from them?  Am I obedient to the identity that God gives me?  Or am I really obedient to how I think life should work?

I am grateful that I serve a forgiving God.  I am grateful that I serve a God who is primarily interested in relationship rather than perfection.  If God wanted perfection from me, I’d have no chance.  But I can repent.  I can return to God.  I can mess up, listen, come back to Him, and know that He will forgive.  That’s the Father desiring me to obediently live out the identity that He has chosen for me.

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Year 4, Day 57: Exodus 8

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity, Obedience

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.
• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from Father.

What do we do when we come into contact with the awesomeness of God’s power?  Do we rebel against it?  Do we shake our fist at God and ask how He could do such a thing?

In my blog post 3 years ago – which you can access by clicking on the “Theological Commentary” link above – I proposed the idea that the plagues are not judgments upon a pagan Egyptian culture as much as they are an opportunity to come and see the power of the God who created the universe.

You see, the first three plagues affected the Hebrew people and the Egyptians alike.  But then the Hebrew people wake up and understood what God was doing.  They wanted to go out and worship.  They got the message and submit to God’s plan!  However, Pharaoh was never willing to submit.  So from the fourth plague onward, the plagues only affect the Egyptians and not the Hebrew people.

This made me think about us today.  When I come in contact with God, how do I respond?  Do I get my identity from Him and submit to His power, desiring nothing more than to worship Him and be in a relationship with such an awesome being?  Am I obedient to that calling?  Or do I fortify my position and make myself strong against His action and refuse to humble myself in His midst?  Coming in contact with God is a dangerous time, because it is in those moments where my true identity and obedience is exposed the greatest.

Do I bow at the knee or do I shake my fist?

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Year 4, Day 27: Genesis 28

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from Father.

For two straight days we’ll take a look at obedience, for again we get two great perspectives on obedience.  The first example, Esau, is another negative example.  Esau hears Isaac talk to Jacob about the trouble of wives from outside God’s family and he does something about it himself.  He finds himself an Ishmaelite woman, which means that this third wife would have been a part of Abraham’s descendants.  However, Esau is simply compounding the problem.  Esau hasn’t dealt with the two wives he already has.  Adding a third wife won’t solve anything!

Jacob, on the other hand, finally begins to sort out his life.  Jacob begins to obey.  He is obedient to His father and seeks out Laben.  In that obedience, he is also obedient to God.  We can see this in the dream that Jacob has.  God comes to Jacob and tells him that so long as Jacob follows His ways that He will bless Jacob.  This is a promise of obedience.  So long as Jacob follows God, gets his identity from God, and obeys Him then God will bless Jacob.  Here we get our first glimpse of the obedient Israel shining forth out of the deceiving Jacob.

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Year 4, Day 21: Genesis 22

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity, Obedience

• Identity: Our true identity comes from God.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.
• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from Father.

I think Genesis 22 is a clear avenue to lift up this idea of identity.  God comes to Abraham and tells Abraham to take his only Son and go to Moriah and lift him up as a sacrifice.  Now, let’s put this into perspective.  Remember that Abraham was a hundred years old when Isaac was born.  It’s not like he’s a spring chicken and likely to have many more children.  Additionally, God had to open up Sarah’s barren womb in order for a child to come forth.  Furthermore, God had already promised Abraham that his offspring through Isaac would be like the sand of the seashore and like the stars of heaven.  This grand vision from God is put in jeopardy because at a ripe old age God asks of Abraham to make a sacrifice out of Isaac.

Yet, Abraham’s identity is in God.  I’m not advocating child sacrifice.  Neither am I advocating thoughtless obedience.  But I am advocating obedience in general.  Abraham can be obedient to God because his agenda is set on godly pursuits.  He trusts that God has his best interests in mind.  He is willing to put God’s agenda ahead of his own.  Abraham’s identity is from God, not from himself.

It is only because he is willing to be obedient to God that he ends up blessed.  That’s the point of Genesis 22:16-17.  God blesses Abraham and makes him the father of his chosen people because Abraham’s identity was in God and that identity led to obedience.

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Year 4, Day 20: Genesis 21

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Invitation, Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from God.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.
• Invitation: God is always inviting us into relationship with Him. He desires that we know Him and we know His desires for us.

The story of Isaac and Ishmael is a great lens through which we can look at identity.  If we look at Isaac, his identity is easy to establish.  He is the promised child of Abraham and Sarah.  He is created through God’s power in opening up Sarah’s womb.  His identity is clearly rooted in God’s handiwork.

Ishmael is a more difficult person to look at with respect to identity.  He’s the product of a human plan.  He’s the child of a union between a man and his slave.  From a worldly perspective, he doesn’t have a great hope for identity.  Yet, God gives Ishmael an identity.  God loves Ishmael in spite of his worldly origins.  For me, this is the powerful testimony in these verses.  Isaac’s identity is clearly rooted in God.  But Ishmael has an identity that is just as equally rooted in God’s love.

This happily leads us into the realm of invitation.  God desires us to be in relationship with Him.  He desires that we know Him.  He doesn’t care about our origins; He cares about our relationship with Him.  He invites us to come and know Him deeply.  He invites us to get our identity from Him, our Father.

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Year 4, Day 18: Genesis 19

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity, Authority

• Identity: Our true identity comes from God.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.
• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.

When I look at Lot in Genesis 19 I see a crisis of identity.  Whatever is at the top of Lot’s Covenant Triangle, it doesn’t seem like it is God.  God tells Lot to run away, but Lot can’t bring himself to leave without being dragged away.  God tells Lot to flee to the hills, but Lot can’t bear to think about not being a part of civilization.  Lot ends up in the hills, and he chooses drunkenness and infidelity with his own daughters rather than being a responsible man.  Here is a man whose identity is rooted in the world rather than being rooted in the Father.

However, when we look at Abraham we see a man whose identity is from the Father and whose authority comes from the King.  Whereas Lot is always on the brink of corruption and has to flee without looking back, God permits Abraham to look upon the valley of Sodom and live.  Abraham has authority in his life to not be corrupted by the sinfulness of Sodom.  That kind of authority over human sinfulness can only come from the Father.

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Year 4, Day 14: Genesis 15

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Father, Identity

• Father: This is the pinnacle of the Covenant Triangle.  God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.  we get our identity through Him.
• Identity: Our true identity comes from God.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

As you might expect in the chapter where we see God give the first covenant to Abraham, we’re going to talk today about the covenant triangle.  If you haven’t already done so, click on the link above to the theological commentary and read the last section in that post regarding covenants in the ancient world.  What I say that follows will assume you have access to that knowledge.

What I love about God’s covenants is that He is the only being who makes a covenant in which He assumes that He is the only one doing all the necessary work.  God makes the verbal promise, Abraham receives it.  God passes through the cut up animals, Abraham receives God’s figurative oath coming through that act.  God does all the work!

The same is true in our life as well.  We have the opportunity to come to God and become praus – that is, fully submitted – to Him.  It is then that we discover His identity for us.  It is then that we discover His desire for our life.  It is then that we discover relationship with Him.  It is then that we discover just how much He has indeed already done for us.  We simply need to follow.  We simply need to embrace what He is already at work doing within us and through us. 

It all starts with the Father.  He brings salvation to us.  He brings forgiveness to us.  He gives us identity.  He tells us who we are and who we can be.

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Year 4, Day 11: Genesis 11-12

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from Father.

In Genesis 11-12 we can see two stories of obedience.  One is partial obedience and the other is full obedience.  We see them in Terah, Abraham’s father, and Abraham himself.

After the fall of the community attempting to develop Babel, the people disperse.  Eventually the focus of the Bible falls upon a distant descendant of Shem: Terah.  We hear that Terah is living in Ur among the Chaldean people.  God calls Terah to leave Ur.  Terah obeys full heartedly.  The problem is that God calls Terah to go to Canaan.  Terah stops in Haran.  Terah is only partially obedient.  I believe this comes out of a conflict with Terah’s identity.  Instead of looking for what God desires of him, Terah settles for a nice place to live and raise a good family.  Terah’s identity is not fully rooted in God, thus he doesn’t have the interior life to sustain a whole quest to Canaan.  He’s just not fully looking for what God fully desires.

Abraham, on the other hand, listens to God and manages to go the whole way to Canaan.  Abraham’s identity is indeed rooted in what God wants for him.  This is true at least, until a famine sets in.  Then we see Abraham falter a little.  But with respect to Abraham’s identity, he sees himself as the man God sees him as he gives up his life in Haran and continues on to the Promised Land.  He is obedient, because His identity is found in God.

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Year 4, Day 10: Genesis 10

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from God.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

I think it makes sense to speak about identity when we come to a genealogy.  After all, what is the point of a genealogy but to locate a person among those who come before – and subsequently, after – them.  Genealogies are inherently about identity and discovering who we are and what we are about within God’s family.

When we look within this genealogy, this is exactly the view that we get.  The Semites, the people of Shem, are the people of Mesopotamia and are directly involved in God’s work in the Old Testament.  It is these people out of whom Abraham comes.  The Japhethites are the people who go into Asia Minor and Europe and become the people to whom the mission goes in the New Testament.  Notice that both of these peoples come from the sons of Noah who respected their father at the end of the prior chapter.

Then, there are the Hamites.  These people are the people of Canaan and Africa.  These people become the perpetual adversaries of the Hebrew people and seldom if ever respond to God on any kind of large scale.  Remember that it was Ham who did nothing to help his father at the end of the prior chapter.

Here we can see identity with respect to God’s greater scheme.  He respects and does not abandon those who respect and follow His ways.  Those who seek to find their identity in places other than God’s ways will continually find themselves at odds with God and God’s ways.  It really boils down to the question: where do you get your identity?

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Year 4, Day 7: Genesis 7

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from Father.

What can we say about Noah other than he is an extraordinarily obedient man.  God tells him to build a super-huge ark and he does.  I don’t think I can imagine the effort put into that process.  Remember, it’s not like there was a Home Depot just down the street.  The lumber needed to be felled and then cut.  The nails and wooden pegs needed to be fashioned.  The pitch for waterproofing had to be found, made, refined, then applied.  I can’t imagine how much effort that project took and how obedient Noah was to God’s plan.

Furthermore, the animals needed to be gathered.  They had to be controlled.  Supplies needed to be found for all the animals.  What an undertaking that had to have been.

Not to mention that his family still had to be managed.  Sure, Noah’s sons helped along the way.  But I can’t imagine everything was roses.  I’m sure there were days when Noah’s sons were tired, frustrated, cranky, irritable, or sore.  Yet, through all of this, Noah’s primary characteristic is his obedience.  Noah saw God’s direction and obeyed.

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Year 3, Day 365: Revelation 22

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Father, King

• Father: This is the pinnacle of the Covenant Triangle.  God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.  we get our identity through Him.
• King: This is the pinnacle of the Kingdom Triangle.  When we look towards God’s position in the universe, we acknowledge that He is king.  Authority comes from Him.  Power comes through His authority.  He is looking for representatives for His kingdom.

Again in this chapter we get a sense of God’s identity-given nature of being our Father.  In the end, He will be the source of all healing.  We will see His face and His name will be upon our foreheads.  He gives us identity.  This is perhaps the most fundamental claim of the whole of the Bible.  We are made complete through God.  He gives us our identity.

As you might expect in the last chapter of our Bible, we also get a sense of the kingly nature of God.  The same section that speaks to God being the source of our identity also speaks of our ruling through Him.  Because He is the Father, our identity comes through Him and we can obey.  However, it doesn’t stop there.  Because God is the King, He seeks representatives.  He seeks people to embody Him to this world.  Through His kingship we have both authority and power to rule under Him.  As this passage says, those in Him will rule forever.

We are complete in God’s identity for us.  We can rule through His empowerment.  But it all starts with Him.  That is how it should be.

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Year 3, Day 364: Revelation 21

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Father, King

• Father: God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.
• King: This is the pinnacle of the Kingdom Triangle.  When we look towards God’s position in the universe, we acknowledge that He is king.  Authority comes from Him.  Power comes through His authority.  He is looking for representatives for His kingdom.

In this chapter, we hear that God is the alpha and the omega.  Another way of thinking about alpha and omega is beginning and end.  A different way of thinking of this is source and goal.  God is the source of life and the goal of life.

This brings us to the concept of Father.  God is the creator.  He is the source.  Specifically, He is the source of our identity.  Out of our identity comes our obedience.  Because God is the alpha, we can know who we are and what He desires for us to do.  We only have to respond.

We can do this same thinking with the idea of omega.  God is our goal.  He is the king.  Because He is the king, He grants us authority.  He gives us the power to accomplish His goal.

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Year 3, Day 358: Revelation 14

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity, Obedience

• Identity: Our true identity comes from God.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.
• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from God.

In Revelation 14 we hear about the 144,000 martyrs.  What leapt out before me about these martyrs is that they are sealed on their foreheads with the name of the Father and the Son.  It is clear from whom these martyrs get their identity.  We talked about Up yesterday and unlike the people in Revelation 13 the martyrs of Revelation 14 have God in their Up position.  Their identity is absolutely coming from the Father.  In fact, their identity comes so much from the Father that they are willing to be martyred for it.  Now that’s identity!

However, this passage doesn’t stop with identity.  The passage goes into obedience.  What do these people do with their identity?  They follow the Lamb wherever he goes.  It’s like the inverse of the nursery rhyme about Mary and her little lamb.  Instead of the lamb following everywhere that Mary went, the people of Revelation 14 are smart enough to follow the lamb!

Then we look to the message of the first angel?  Fear God and give Him glory!  Here is another chance at obedience.  Fear God.  Turn to Him.  Get your identity from Him.  Then give Him glory!

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Year 3, Day 355: Revelation 10-11

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from God.

Twice in these chapters we have a time for John to decide whether to obey or not.  Because John’s identity is rooted in God, he can easily obey.

In Revelation 10, we hear God tell John to eat the scroll in spite of the fact that it will make his stomach sour.  John does it.  He obeys.  John knows that ministry is filled with pleasant and difficult moments.  John also knows that a spiritual life is filled with moments of great sweetness as well as moments of bitter soul-searching and growth.  Often our obedience to God leads us through a life that is both sweet and bitter.

In Revelation 11, we hear of another time for John to be obedient.  God tells John to measure the temple.  He obeys.  He does the work before Him.  Again we see that His obedience comes from the fact that John’s identity comes from God.

However, within this greater story of obedience we see another example of obedience.  Before the temple two witnesses stand.  The two witnesses are a thorn in the side of the world.  They prophesy to the world and bring about plagues and curses on those who are not humble before God.  Yet because of their obedience to God the world will hate them.  War is made against them.  Eventually they are killed and the world celebrates over their dead bodies.  Yet these witnesses are obedient to God in spite of the rejection that they find in the world.  They are obedient because their identity is rooted in the Father, not in the validation that might come from the world.

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Year 3, Day 354: Revelation 9

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from God.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

Okay, I’ll admit it.  It is fairly difficult to look into this chapter and pull out a discipleship focus.  After all, this chapter is doom and gloom and wrath and judgment.

However, if we look at those around whom the judgments of this chapter revolve, we see that the primary characteristic of these people is that they are not obedient to God.  They have not submitted to God.  They do not have the seal of God upon their foreheads.  Their identity is not “God’s people.”

What is sad about this chapter is that even after the judgments the people who are left still do not repent.  Even after seeing the power and the omniscience of God they do not repent.

There is the lesson for discipleship in this chapter.  When faced with a God who knows us better than ourselves, shouldn’t we get our identity from Him?  Shouldn’t we submit to Him and become obedient to that identity rather than the identity we foolishly make for ourselves?

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Year 3, Day 350: Revelation 4-5

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Who we are.  This is defined by God.  It comes from God.  It comes to us through God’s love for us.

I love these chapters of Revelation for the picture we see of Jesus.

• He is a lamb.  But He is no simple lamb.  He is a lamb who has been slain.  Jesus is the sacrifice for our atonement.
• He is the Lion of Judah.  He is the Messianic ruler of Judah.  He is powerful.  His strength is unrivaled.
• He is the Root of David.  Jesus is of the line of David.  He is of the lineage of kings.  He is the promised Messiah to come.
• He has seven horns.  Seven represents God’s completeness.  Jesus is complete.  He is omnipotent.
• He receives power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.  Jesus knows that He is not the source.  Rather, these qualities come to Him.

Here we see a Jesus who understands His identity comes from God.  Jesus is not out to create an identity of His own choosing.  He embraces the identity that comes from God.  God wanted Him to be born.  God wanted Him to teach and be among the people.  God wanted Jesus to die for our sake.  God wanted Jesus to rise and have power over death and the world.  Jesus can do all of these things in obedience to the Father because He understands that His identity comes from the will of the Father. 

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Year 3, Day 347: Revelation 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus:

• Identity: Who we are.  This is defined by God.  It comes from God.  It comes to us through God’s love for us.
• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.

This passage speaks of Christ and His awareness of His identity.  He is the faithful witness.  He is the first-born out of the dead.  He freed us from sin.  He made us priests to serve God.  Jesus knew who He was because His identity came from the Father.  Each of these attributes of Jesus are true not because Jesus desired them to be true but rather because God the Father desired Christ to be each of these things.  Jesus’ identity originated with the Father.

This passage also screams authority.  The King sends out His Messiah.  Jesus comes clothed like a king with a sash around his chest.  His eyes were like flames.  His voice is like a lion.  From his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword full of power.  Here we see the conquering Messiah.  He knows His calling.  God has equipped Him and given Him authority.  Here we see Jesus coming in power to accomplish God’s will.

Revelation 1 gives us a balanced perspective.  Jesus knows His identity comes from God and is obedient to it.  He knows His authority comes from the King and He goes forth in power.

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Year 3, Day 346: Daniel 12

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Father/Identity

• Father: God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.
• Identity: Who we are.  This is defined by God.  It comes from God.  It comes to us through God’s love for us.

In the commentary I wrote three years ago, I spoke of struggling with the words: “Shut up these words and seal the book.”  After all, I’m a person who likes to be informed and who likes to know what is going on.  I enjoy being in the know and being able to make decisions through being informed.  While it’s okay to be informed, it’s not okay to let these feelings push me into the realm of having to be in control.

I’m learning that’s me and unfortunately it is how I want to be.  It’s a rather self-centered attitude to have.  But there is a better way.  Rather than making my decisions and having to be in control, life works best when I remember to take my time and let God be in control and get my identity from Him.  Sure, it’s good to be informed.  But it is far easier to let God be in control and respond to what He brings into my life than it is to have to try and manage the whole world myself.

It’s okay that I don’t have all the answers; God knows what is going on.  It’s okay that I’m not in full control; God is in full control.  It is time I start focusing on that which God has placed into my identity rather than having to exert control over every minutia of detail in my life.  It’s okay for these words – and perhaps more importantly their full breadth of understanding – to be shut up and sealed.  I don’t need to know everything.  I need to know what God needs me to know so that I can be the person He desires me to be.  That’s identity that comes from the Father.

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