“For Love to be experienced, I have to be exposed.”

That’s the word that came to me.

It’s an answer to an almost two-year-long prayer where I asked, “Father, show me You. Please let me see You the way Jesus sees You so I am likewise driven by a love, an awe, a reverence, an adoration, and an unwavering commitment to You.”

Two years ago, the Holy Spirit gave me, “Seek Me in the face of My people.”

I obeyed, and it was transformative.

A new fire has been kindled in my heart by the Holy Spirit.

I am experiencing God.

Now, I believe that the Lord is calling me to a new level of intimacy with Him through people, to move from “meeting at”: meeting at church, meeting at Bible study, meeting at marriage ministry, meeting at this event, meeting at that function, meeting at lunch, to “living with.”

Honestly, I don’t know what that means yet. All I get is the sense that it involves uncomfortable risk, letting down my guard, and leaving the places of safety that I’ve constructed. He is my shield.

To do that, I have to go, I have to show up, I have to be present, and I have to expose myself—all things that are horrendous to a self-proclaimed introvert.

But, I gladly, albeit reluctantly, step forward to learn obedience (love in a new way – 1 John 5:3) through the things I will certainly suffer that I may know Him.

So, I will show up. I will let in. I will expose myself.

But why haven’t I been showing up before now?

To understand that, I have to understand what the opposite of showing up is:

Hiding.

This revelation comes out of Genesis 3:9-11, which recounts Adam’s interaction with God after the sin of taking someone else’s word over God’s. As a result, he hid.

“Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’

So he said, ‘I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.’

And He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?'”
— Genesis 3:9-11

Observe that Adam and Eve’s fear and shame were NOT the result of anything God did or said. They were ashamed BEFORE God said anything to them. They became ashamed because of the information they accepted from another source, namely about themselves.

“I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

Eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is like watching porn rather than being taught about sex by a loving father.

Rather than seeing your bodies and the beauty of sex in the context of sacredness, awe, exploration, acceptance, appreciation, safety, promise, and commitment, through porn you receive a distortion framed in selfishness, objectification, subjugation, trivialization, comparison, performance, perversion, and risk…

What was peddled as freedom results in fear, which is often the case when we get our information from those who don’t love us. And fear results in hiding.

“I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

God’s response absolutely leveled my heart:

“Who told you that you were naked?”

This is what God chooses to say among the infinite options of things He could have said in response. So, it begs the question, why?

In a single statement, I believe God wages a war that He’s already won, starting His attack on the source of all sorrows—sin, which separates us from Him. God exposes the root of sin and takes an axe to it:

“Who made you afraid, telling you that you are anything less than loved and accepted so that you needed to hide?”

-And the crux of the matter-

“Why did you believe them over Me?”

THE problem is believing someone other than God, and believing something other than what God said.

The result is fear, which causes us to hide.

I know a lot about hiding. I’ve been doing it for nearly forty years now. All because I’ve believed a series of someones over God and believed something about myself that God didn’t say.

God said, “Who told you that you were naked?”

“Naked” is representative of all the damning things we’ve come to believe according to the distorted value system of this world.

We can take whatever that is, especially things we’ve come to believe about ourselves: ugly, worthless, poor, stupid, unwanted, unlovable, alone… and plug it into that sentence:

“Who told you that you were ______?”

Mine is: a disappointment.

In my heart of hearts, I believe I am a disappointment.

I go into every interaction with people assuming that I’m going to disappoint them in some way and ultimately be abandoned. So, naturally, I avoid interaction, and it causes me to hide.

It has affected every relationship that I have.

It has caused me to put burdens on others to make me feel like I’m not a disappointment, especially in romantic relationships, including my wife.

But that’s an impossible task when at the heart of the problem is I’ve believed someone other than God. If I didn’t believe God, how can they possibly convince me?!!

I repent.

The lie I believed is deep-seated from a very early age. I’ve believed the scowls. I’ve believed the isolation at a time when I should have received nothing but love. I’ve believed that I am only embraced and accepted on the basis of merit rather than for just being. I’ve believed I have to look a certain way and have certain things.

It became a part of me, too intricately interwoven to remove without killing me or making me utterly unrecognizable, which is precisely why I have to die.

I have to die to the person who lives according to the word of demons, what this world says and Satan, the ruler of it, and be born again according to the incorruptible seed of the Word of God, which is Christ, by His Spirit, with a heart that believes Him.

Therewith, I will make war with every thought or emotion that causes me to want to hide, accounting the old me as dead. I will live in newness and counter it with the question,

“Who told you that?”

And, I will believe God.

God says you are accepted in the beloved (Ephesians 1:6). Full stop.

I am not accepted on the basis of performance, appearance, or merit, but simply because of who He is.

When we see God as He is in truth, we see everything else appropriately, and it casts out all fear.

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”
— 1 John 4:18

“And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”
— 1 John 4:16

Now, I endeavor to realize this Love and to know Him more fully.

The Spirit tells me that requires others.

“For Love to be experienced, I have to be exposed.”

So, I press.

I can’t be exposed if I’m hiding. So, I will confront every suggestion that causes me to want to hide with what God said, “Who told you that?” And, I will fight to believe Him.

Knowing and believing the love of God for us, accomplished through Jesus Christ, is glorious, but obedience: experiencing, expressing, and expanding on the love with others will be difficult, and I will suffer because that love will be opposed.

As I present myself naked and exposed, standing on what God says, there will surely be others that will mock me, ridicule me, and assert what the adversary says—that I am not loved.

But, I will fight to believe God.

Please pray for me.

And, if you’re so prompted by the Holy Spirit, join me.

#perfectourlove