You can experience the presence of God just like we did together and in even greater measure every single day of your life.

Let’s turn together to Ezekiel 47. I brought this up in the introduction, but I want to revisit it again right now.

In Ezekiel 47, God shows Ezekiel a vision. In this vision, God shows him a river that is flowing out of the Temple of God. This river is a prophetic picture of the Spirit of God; yes, the same one that we interact with and also fills our hearts, the same one that you felt just a few moments ago. In this vision, God takes Ezekiel from standing on the bank and looking at the river all the way out into its depths, where his feet couldn’t touch anymore. Ezekiel went from a place of observation, to limited experience with control, all the way to experience without any control at all.

This is a beautiful illustration from God, displaying what we can experience with Him if we are willing to go just a little further, day by day.

Each day with Jesus is a fresh new opportunity to take another step toward Him in faith and experience more of Him each and every day than we did the one before. And the further that we go, with the more that we experience, requires us to relinquish step-by-step control as we go. But that makes sense why repentance is the first step to meeting Jesus. I have to repent of my own desire for control to truly and deeply experience the depths of His flow, surrendering by the step to the strength of the current.

We have already learned so much about Jesus, but there is still so much more to learn. What do you say that for the remainder of this chapter, we just keep learning?

Cool? Okay, sweet… Let’s keep going.

It’s so important for us to know Jesus. After all, if we are going to follow Him, it would make sense that we need to know who He is, right?

Just as it is with any relationship, the more you get to know someone, the more that you learn about them. And often, as you learn more about them, you learn that there is way more to this person you are meeting than you initially thought.

It’s the same with Jesus.

As we meet Him and begin to discover deeper about who He is, we begin to see in even greater measure the meaning of His life and gospel message. It is truly, incredibly difficult to share the gospel of Jesus without also talking about who He is. In this chapter and the one to follow, we will endeavor to do both.

To really dive into who Jesus is, just like we did in Chapter 4, we will need to do another quick rewind to the Book of Genesis.

In Genesis, the stage is set. It is God, alone, by Himself, moving over the face of what was the unformed nothingness that in just a few moments would become the earth that we inhabit today. And somewhere between the reality of the nothingness and the beautiful creation that we live in and behold today… He speaks.

God speaks…

"Let there be…” And there was.

Simple as that. Whatever it was that He said… simply just became. What was never there before, all of the sudden, just from the sheer power of His spoken words alone, would simply materialize into being. At His word, the formless nothingness became form and substance. And from the immense darkness came light as He spoke it into being. As this continued, so also came the sun, the moon, the earth, water, plants, animals, fish, birds, and every other element of nature and life.

And He liked it.

Everything that God made, He really enjoyed.

We know this because after He had finished making a particular thing, when He was done with it, He would call it “good.” He made the plants, and they were “good.” He made the birds, and they were “good.” He made the animals, and they were “good.” But although God had made so much “good,” He had not yet made all that He would call “good.”

Next, God would set His sights on creating mankind.

That’s us, by the way.

So God grabs a handful of dirt from the earth, and from that handful of earth, He begins to form and fashion from it the Creation of man. Once He is satisfied with the form of man from the dirt, He then stoops down and begins to breathe into the lungs of His creation. The Bible calls this the breath of life.

Here’s how the Bible details the scene:

“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).

Now all of a sudden, man is alive. He is a living, breathing soul… the final creation of God that earns the description “good.”

But while man is created by God just like everything else around him, man is unique among the creation of God. While everything else that God made was truly “good,” man is the only one of the creations that has been made in the “image” of God. As a matter of fact, all of the creations that was made up until God formed man were made for man and to sustain man.

Yep, look around you.

Notice the creation of God: the trees, water, birds, animals, sky, clouds, mountains, and more. Then, pause to think to yourself for a moment. God loves humans so much that He made this for us to enjoy, to inhabit, to manage, to thrive within, but most of all, to glorify and worship Him. Creation wasn’t just to enjoy. Part of the beauty of God’s handiwork in Creation was to cause man to worship and to seek Him. God’s creation doesn’t just sustain mankind, but serves as a means to reveal Him to us (Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:20).

This leads us to our next point.

God’s intention for creating man wasn’t just to make him from the earth and for the earth. God’s purpose for man was far greater than that.

God made man for God Himself.

God made man for fellowship, for connection, for interaction… to be worshipped and adored by His creation. This is the true reason that man was created… to know God and to be known by Him.

Let’s briefly discuss the place that God made for man to live.

When God made man, He placed him in a very specific place called Eden, which means “a place in the presence of God.”

From the very beginning of time, woven into the context of our creation, is this truth: that we were made to be with God, living within close proximity to Him.

That is… in His presence.

It feels important for me to make a slight footnote right here, highlighting mankind’s created context in the presence of God.

God made man in and for His presence, and from within this specific context, God would provide for man everything that he would ever need to not only survive but to thrive.

In the presence of God.

There is, simply put, no other way to thrive as a human being created by God than inside of the contextual atmosphere that we were made in and for… His presence.

His presence must be our abode. Our place of dwelling. The place that we set up camp and refuse to move from. Like when Moses said to the Lord in Exodus 33:15, “If Your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.” In other words, “If You aren’t with us, I don’t want to go.” It is this same posture that we ourselves must take if we are to truly thrive in our souls.

We must have this priority: His presence over everything.

Let's illustrate this a little bit.

Imagine for a moment that you have a peach tree, smack dab in good ol’ Georgia. A thriving one. The kind that has the big juicy peaches that drip off your elbow when you eat them at peak ripeness.

Can someone get me a peach, please? LOL.

Let’s say that we take this amazing peach tree, thriving in the climate of Georgia, and we attempt to transplant this tree to a brand-new climate. Let’s say, Alaska.

The peach tree would surely die.

It would wither, it would struggle, and it would certainly, in very short order, cease not only to thrive but to even live at all. Why? Because the atmospheric elements of Alaska are not conducive for a peach tree that was designed to survive and thrive in Georgia.

Just as you wouldn’t take a peach tree to the tundra and expect it to survive, likewise you cannot take your soul outside of the presence of God and expect to live within the abundant life that Jesus has promised to each and every one of us (John 10:10).

Okay, back to the story.

God makes man to know Him and be known by Him. But as we read earlier, man runs into a very significant issue. He disobeys God. He sins.

When God placed man in His presence, He gave him very specific instructions. One of which was to not eat from one tree, that is, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. But here came the cunning serpent, the devil, who through temptation convinced Adam’s wife Eve, and thereby Adam, to eat the fruit that God had forbidden them to eat.

Man’s direct disobedience to these instructions by God, which was sin, brought about a significant dilemma for not just Adam and his wife Eve, but for all of mankind that was soon to come through them. And as a result of their sin, Adam and Eve were removed from the presence of God.

No more Eden.

But why? Lean in here for a second, because we are about to learn another significant key about God, right here:

God cannot fellowship or share space with what is not like Him. At least not without the thing that is not like Him becoming completely consumed by Him. Literally, vanquished.

Adam and Eve’s situation is really bad and, certainly on the surface, looks like a very hopeless situation for all of humanity. I mean, how can we thrive apart from His presence? We can’t! And because of this truth, death has now become a reality. And life, which at one time was effortless in Eden, now outside of it, becomes extremely difficult.

Although this sounds entirely hopeless, it is not. Let me explain to you why. It goes back to one quick but significant detail, found in the story of the Creation of man in Genesis 1:26–27. When God makes man in His image.

Let’s answer this question together. When God made man in His image, what image did He make him in?

As we learned earlier, God is a Spirit. We see this from the opening scene of the Bible as the Spirit of God is found moving over the face of the waters, even prior to Creation. The Bible also tells us that as a Spirit, God was invisible. And yet, you mean to tell me that, somehow this invisible God has an image? How? And if that is true, what image?

This is where the story gets really good.

The Bible says of Jesus that He is the begotten Son of God. John 1 tells us that He is the Word of God… which is the mind, plan, and heart of God, manifest in the flesh. A few verses of Scripture later in John 1:18, John says that Jesus has fully revealed God to us. Hebrews 1:3 tells us that Jesus is “the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person.” 2 Corinthians 5:19 gives us the insight that when Jesus came to the earth, it was God who was in Jesus, reconciling the world to Himself.

Scripture reveals to us that Jesus was God who took on the form of a man for the purposes of redeeming His creation that has fallen into sin, and thereby away from God, becoming alienated from His presence and design for their lives.

Uniquely, as it relates to the question of whose image Adam was made in, Colossians 1:15 tells us that He, meaning Jesus, is the image of the invisible God. And that in Him dwells all the fullness of God, in bodily form (Colossians 2:9).

Finally, Scripture declares to us that Jesus was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8).

Let’s take a momentary detour to talk about this lamb slain thing. What’s that all about?

This point in particular is unique and important because, in Scripture, after the fall of man and their subsequent expulsion from Eden, God tells His people that in order to temporarily cover the penalty of their sins and thereby delay, or push back, the impending judgment which was due to them for their inability to pay this fee, they would need to shed the blood of an innocent animal sacrifice.

But don’t miss the point. It wasn’t about the animal.

The animal was a prophetic symbol, pointing forward into the future where the eventual Lamb of God would come to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29). This Lamb of God would become the final sacrifice, once and for all, for all of humanity. The blood that was to be shed of this eventual Lamb of God would be perfect and sinless, and thereby sufficient to pay the sin debt owed by all people, a debt which could only be paid by death.

This Lamb would be slain on a new altar, which would come in the form of a cross.

Before God ever made man as His creation, formed and fashioned in His image, you must first understand that He had already made up in His mind to die for humanity. The decision to cover the sins that His creation had not yet even committed was already made. Before God ever picked up a handful of dirt and began sculpting, God already had formalized His plan to redeem His creation. Because of this, God chose to make Adam in the image of the man that He (God Himself) would eventually become to redeem him.

Yes. You’ve got that right. God made man in the image of the begotten Son that He would one day become in order to redeem His creation… Jesus.

Did you know that you were made in the image of your Redeemer?

Your Creator made you in the image of your redemption. Think about that for a second. Redemption is in your DNA.

The very framework of who you are, to the smallest breakdown and complexity of who you are, you, quite literally, were made to be redeemed.

Let that reality sink into your heart for a moment as you read this. Maybe even pause and take a second to look in the mirror. Maybe pull out your phone and turn the camera on selfie mode and just look at yourself for a moment.

I want you to look at what God has made.

Maybe you see the self that you have grown tired of seeing. Maybe you see the self that you don’t think has any worth. Maybe you see the self that you at times wonder if it will ever be good enough for anyone or anything. But maybe, you could see something more. Maybe you could see what Jesus sees when He looks at you: that you were made for God.

I want you to look at yourself and tell yourself this: “I was made to be redeemed.” And then I want you to receive those words.

Let that truth sink deep down into your heart. Don’t just say these words because you feel like I am making you. Speak this truth until the words coming from your mouth begin to form something new  in your heart, moving beyond fictitious hope,  into your true and present reality. 

Let this truth inform your emotions about yourself and the life that God Himself has given you, and then watch your soul begin to lift up toward hope as you settle into the reality that Jesus made you, just for Him.

Oh, and by the way, He calls you “good.”

It would be absolutely fitting right here, as you take this moment to pause and dwell on this truth from God’s Word, to repeat what we learned in how to meet Jesus.

Lift your hands, lift your face to God, close your eyes, and begin to declare the truth of what you now know. That you love Jesus, and Jesus loves you back. Thank Him for being so thoughtful, kind, loving, and gracious. Let His love wash over you and the confidence of His truth fill your heart.

The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:45 that Jesus is the second Adam. And as the second Adam, Jesus came to reverse the curse of sin and death that resulted from the sin of the first Adam.

He came to finish a job that we could not.

Through the life of the first Adam came death. But through the death of the second Adam, Jesus, came life (more on that soon).

Im hoping that little by little, line by line, you’re beginning to see the picture.

Jesus is God in human form, come to redeem mankind, which is His creation made in His image. He is the Redeemer and the Savior of humanity. He is the only supreme God. Not a second God. Not a lesser version or form of God. He is not a person sandwiched within other Gods. He is, as the Scripture says, “God manifest in the flesh,” in whom “dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9).

He is the one who when we get to Heaven, we will see seated on the throne, just as the disciple John did when God showed him the throne room of Heaven in Revelation 4:2, as he saw “a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne” (Revelation 4:2).

That one is Jesus.

The full revelation of the Father. The Son of God in redemption. And through the selfless sacrifice of His life for us, we now experience the joy of His presence through His Holy Spirit.

Reflection Questions: