If someone were to ask, ‘Who are you?’  How would you answer? Some would explain themselves happily telling you all they have done, what they have experienced, and what their aspirations are.   Some would not be able to tell you who they are but they would be able to explain who they are not -very well!  Are we accurately defined by all these? In truth, what we think of ourselves is who we present in actuality.  No matter what we say with our words, they will betray what our mind believes – if we are not in truth. Prov 23:7  Luke 12:34. In the same way, we could ask, ‘Who is Jesus?’  There will be two kinds of answers.  One will be what you may have discovered about Jesus through research, study, and what others say and the other will be how we know Him by personal experience.  Knowing the Lord by experience is not to be mistaken for having encounters with the Lord, where we have felt Him moving or present in our lives in certain times and events in times past.  But rather, who we know the Lord is today, right now- personally. The closer we are to Him the more we can share who He is in Spirit and truth. The only way to get closer to the Lord is to lose ourselves to Him.  We give ourselves to be a living sacrifice so He may have His way in us.  We purposely take ourselves out of the limelight, and off of our thrones and present ourselves as an offering for the Lord to do as He pleases. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:1-2. When we submit to the Lord for no reason but to offer ourselves, a wonderful thing begins to happen.  Not only do we begin to learn who He is but we also understand who we are in Him. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Eph 2:10. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption— that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.” 1 Cor 1:30-31  I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Gal 2:20 The Lord gave me an insight into our Christian lives in a picture of a river.  In the river, you have many facets.  There are bubbling brooks, watering holes, raging rapids, and majestic waterfalls, and along with all these, there are murky cesspools that have a stench of disease due to the presence of mosquito larvae and the restriction of the water flow. The River of the Lord is offered to all of us who trust and follow Him. Our identity is found in this place and where we go in the River depends on our willingness and level of surrender and faith. It depends a great deal on how much we have renewed our minds; Ephes 4: 22-24, Col 3:9-10, Though we are His there is the danger of being snagged in the cesspools I’ll call Self.  Only sin and death are found in these places because Flesh is on the throne and not God; Romans 8.  From time to time we can be snagged but with the Lord’s Word and our obedience, we find our way back into His River of Life.   Let us encourage one another when we have befallen into the cesspool of Self, extending our hand to pull out our brother or sister – being careful that we too do not find ourselves befallen. The Lord wants us to dive deeply into His River unhindered to experience the thrill of living a life of surrender and faith, where we learn how great our God is and His unending depths!

may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, Ephes 3:18-20