Satisfaction in INNOCENCE
As far as for me, because I am innocent, I will see your face until I see you for who you really are. I will be satisfied in an awakening of your likeness in me!
Psalm 17:15 The Passion Translation
There was time in my life when I believed I wasn’t actually innocent, feeling as if I had to live each day repenting for everything I had done.
Religion had convinced me that I was a “dirty rotten sinner” and that I must constantly work on myself to actually be made acceptable before the Father.
When I say religion, I don’t mean people. I am speaking of a spirit that is running rampant through the Church. Religion is the lie we so easily buy into that says we must add to what Jesus has done in order to be made right with God. It’s deceptive and will try to pressure us into performing for holiness, acceptance, grace, and yes even salvation.
Paul states in Ephesians 1:4 that even before God made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and innocent in His eyes.
Even before you and I had a choice, we were chosen. Not only chosen, but chosen in Christ, placed in a irrevocable union with the Trinity. To take it a step further, we are now face-to-face before Him in blameless innocence as a result! This was all apart from our doing and we cannot add to it.
Another word for innocence is one who is deemed righteous. David says, Because I am righteous, I will see you. When I awake, I will see you face-to-face and be satisfied. Psalm 17:15 NLT
We often take scripture and read it out of context because haven’t yet read through the lens what Jesus actually accomplished, so we take verses like this and convince ourselves that we won’t see God face-to-face until we believe that we have accomplished righteousness ourselves. That is not what David is saying.
What David is saying is now that I know that I am the righteousness of God in Christ, I see Abba correctly and I am now fully satisfied in this face-to-face union that I have awakened to! We are simply waking up to the reality. But religion will say, “Well that’s just too easy, Jason.” That was the point of the incarnation Jesus, right? Religion treats our innocence as if he didn’t finish the job.
Being utterly convinced that we are in fact innocent in the eyes of Yahweh opens us up to real face-to-face communion with Him. Perhaps when we view Jesus as the divine portrait of his Father , we begin to live different because we no longer have a God who is “separate” and dictating every move we make? Might I say something that will provoke you to that place? Until we can fully see God as the Abba revealed in Jesus, we will not live as those who are righteous.
Righteousness is awakened in those who see Jesus as the express image of the Father.
The writer of Hebrews says, the Son is the dazzling radiance of God’s splendor, the exact expression of God’s true nature—His mirror image! Hebrews 1:3 TPT
Everything that God has to say about humanity is spoken in His Son, Jesus. He is the very language of God. He, himself is the announcement of our redeemed innocence.
Our innocence has been on the tip of the Father’s tongue all along, we just haven’t see Him correctly, therefore we revert back to personal performance in order to be back into His “good graces.”
The truth of the gospel is that you actually began as one who is innocent, righteous, beloved, accepted. The list goes on!
True satisfaction is only found when you and I awaken to our with union with God and seeing that our likeness is mirrored in Christ.
