Strangers to Ourselves

image: mafleen~Genesis 3:1-10~

Know Yourself

Why do we not know ourselves ?

“We knowersare unknown

to ourselves...”Friedrich Nietzsche

German Philosopher

Why it is that of all the billions and

billions of strange objects in the

cosmos—novas, quasars, pulsars,

black holes— YOU are beyond

doubt the strangest?

Know Yourself

Define Yourself

Bruce Jenner: “Call me Caitlyn”

Rachel Dolezal: “I identify as black.”

“Most vampires believe they were born that way; they don’t choose this.”

~ Dr. D.J. Williams, Idaho State University

People Who ‘Identify As Real Vampires’

Define Yourself

Express Yourself

“Every man has forgotten who he is. One may

understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is

more distant than any star.... We are all under the same

mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We

have all forgotten what we really are…. we forget that

we have forgotten.”

Is it possible that we have

forgotten who we are ?

Strangers to Ourselves

image: mafleen~Genesis 3:1-10~

3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty

Genesis 3:1-10

than any other beast of the field that theLord God had made. He said the woman,“Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden.”

2 And the woman said to the serpent,

Genesis 3:1-10

“We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You all noteat of the fruit of the tree that is in themidst of the garden, neither shall youtouch it, lest you die.’”

4 But the serpent said, “You will not

Genesis 3:1-10

surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you shall be like God, knowing goodand evil.”

6 So when the woman saw that the tree

Genesis 3:1-10

was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she tookof its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

7 Then the eyes of both were opened,

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and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together andmade themselves loincloths.

8 And they heard the sound of the Lord

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God walking in the garden in the cool ofthe day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LordGod among the trees of the garden.9 But the Lord God called to the man

…and said to him, “Where are you?”

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10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

“In knowing God, each of us also knows himself.”

~ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion

French Edition, 1560

Because of the Fall, our basic orientation is

a falling away from God.

We welcome all who are broken and need healing.

We enter the Story that Jesus is telling.

“Your real, new self…will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are

looking for Him.”

“Our orientation toward greed, work, pride, porn,

gossip, lust, fear, or homosexuality is not

naming us; Jesus’s naming of us goes deeper than our accomplishments, our bank

accounts, our failures, or our genitals.”

“He died defined by our sin,

so that we live defined by his

righteousness.”

We battle our fallen desires,

not endorse them.

“All of us have desires that are warped as a

result of our fallen nature. Desires for things that God has

forbidden are a reflection of how sin has

distorted me, not how God has made me.”

Sam Alberry

Is God Anti-Gay? And Other Questions about Homosexuality, The Bible,

and Same-Sex Attraction

“The gospel resists the fallen inclinations of Christian

believers. When we engage with God in Christ and take seriously the commands for

purity that flow from the gospel, we always find our sinful dreams and desires challenged. From God’s perspective, our [sinful] inclinations are like ‘the

craving for salt of a person who is dying of thirst…’.

“...Yet when God begins to try to change the craving

and give us the living water that will ultimately quench

our thirst, we scream in pain, protesting that we were made for salt. The change hurts…. In the long run, the

cruelest thing that God could do would be to leave us

alone with our desires….”

“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former

ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you

also should be holy in all your conduct….”

~ The Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 1:14-15

“Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to

abstain from the passions of the flesh,

which wage war against your soul.”

~ The Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 2:11

We contend that Jesus is better and always worth it

In all my sorrows Jesus is better Make my heart believe

In all my victories Jesus is better

Make my heart believe

Than any comfort Jesus is better Make my heart believe

More than all riches Jesus is better Make my heart believe

Our souls declaring Jesus is better

Make my heart believe

Our song eternal Jesus is better Make my heart believe

Glory, glory! We have no other king but Jesus Lord of all.

image credit: mafleen https://www.flickr.com/photos/mafleen/8472558582/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

flickr images courtesy of:

image credit: marian b. https://www.flickr.com/photos/35355198@N05/3626256142/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

other images used for educational purposes:http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-bruce-jenner-gender-change-captures-us-attention-2015-2

http://www.people.com/article/man-identified-by-dolezal-as-father-defends-her-albert-wilkerson

image credit: Jimmy_Joehttps://www.flickr.com/photos/joc67/510390453 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

image credit: Abdullah Bin Sahlhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/76416192@N06/13952977433/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

image credit: winnifredxoxohttps://www.flickr.com/photos/61056899@N06/5751301741/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

http://almayasabdam.com/pastor-sam-allberry-on-homosexuality-can-you-be-both-gay-and-a-christian/