Reality

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (John 14:6)

In the Gospel of John, Jesus made mind-blowing statements about reality. He invited His followers to think about truth and existence in a new and astonishingly different way. The Lord proclaimed if we gain His definition of reality, it will set us free. The Greek word for truth in John 14:6 is alētheia. It is the word the ancient Greeks used for reality. So, Jesus was not just proclaiming He was the one with the correct facts. He was saying He is reality itself. Allow that to sink in for a moment. Reality is found in who Christ is. Who He is defines who you are and every moment of your life! Such thoughts are earth-shattering. They are meant to lead us from the quagmire of our own perceptions to the glorious revelation of God’s own Son.

There are seven “I am” statements in the book of John. Each unveils the identity of the Christ. No doubt the Jews who read John’s gospel thought about the original I AM proclamation.

 Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”

 And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:13–14)

Scholars debate the meaning of the Lord’s mysterious name. What was God trying to communicate about Himself? A cursory reading might lead us to believe the Lord was saying He is real, or He exists. Some take His name deeper. To them, the name means all things exist through Him or He is the creator of all things. Others say even this profound statement isn’t big enough to encompass God’s name. They say God was not just saying He is a being, but He is being (1). We see this idea is Paul’s sermon at Mars Hill.

… for in Him we live and move and have our being…. (Acts 17:28)

The original I AM statement in Exodus is not far removed from Jesus’s revelation in John 14. “I am reality.”

What is reality? It has been the great human endeavor to answer this question. We have looked at everything from particles incomprehensibly small to a universe that is unimaginably large. Our discoveries are wondrous. Yet, there is another question to ask, not what is reality, but who is reality? If we take the scriptures to heart, we cannot comprehend existence unless God reveals Himself to us.

The Lord never intended for our lives to be an experience of the finite alone, but an experience of who He is. If all we see is finite things, we cannot grasp the truth, for the creation alone is an incomplete truth. The infinite plus the finite equals reality. We cannot perceive truth apart from this glorious union. Christ defines who we are, what we possess, and the circumstances of our lives. Through Christ, God has given Himself to us, and there is nothing His gift does not define. To live otherwise is to live a lie. When we grasp this simple concept, the mystery of relationship with God unfolds.

Let’s try to bring such lofty ideas down to earth. We can begin by talking about life, a subject that interests us all. What do you think about life? We ask this question all the time, even in our greetings: How is it going? What’s up? How are you doing?

Our greetings reveal how we define life. We view it as what is happening to us. It is what’s going on. That is life… happenings. The root word in the word happiness is happen. Happiness is good happenings. We reckon if we have enough good happenings in our lives, our lives will be full, and we can proclaim we are happy.

Many, if not most, Christians reckon God looks at life the way we do. Of course, God wants me to be happy! He loves me! We bend our understanding of God’s love around this belief. Therefore, God’s love for me equals good happenings. We have plenty of scriptures which seem to back up this mindset.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?

Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! (Matthew 7:7–11)

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…. (Ephesians 3:20)

Such scriptures might lead to us to suppose all we have to do is ask God for happiness and He will give it. In fact, He will make our happenings even better than we hope for. We may ask Him for a Ford, but He will give us a Ferrari! In other words, He will give us the reality we want.

In the Old Covenant, God promised His people happiness, but they had to work for it. God promised good happenings if they obeyed Torah and sadness or bad happenings if they disobeyed. We see His promises and threats in Deuteronomy 28. Here we see a long list of blessings for those who obey and a long list of curses for those who disobey. Notice the blessings are good happenings and the curses are bad happenings. Note also that every one of the blessings was finite or material, and the curses were the loss of these same finite things.

That was their covenant. It is not ours. We have a better covenant with better promises (Hebrews 8:6). What are the better promises of the New Covenant? What could be better than a trouble-free life filled with good things? Some say this is still what God wants for us, but we get their blessings without all the work. Instead, we must have faith. By faith, we can turn bad happenings into good happenings. Yet is this what new covenant faith is for… their blessings? I have heard some say if we possess enough faith, we can manifest the reality we want. Is this faith or an ancient lie repackaged?

Have you ever trusted God to give you the reality you want? How did it go? For some, God seems to make their dreams come true. We count these as blessed, and we love to hear their stories. But, what about those whose dreams never come true, those who maybe get the opposite of what they asked for? We don’t like to hear their stories, and we somehow count them unworthy of good happenings.

My experience has caused me to question this perception. When I was younger, I had big dreams “for God,” all for his glory, of course. Yet the Lord never seemed to give me the reality I dreamed about. In fact, there was a time when it looked like He had given the exact opposite of my heart’s desire. God appeared to answer other people’s prayers, but not mine. I prayed for long hours and tried to exercise great faith, but the mountain never moved. I did not understand that when my reality looked empty, I was in the perfect place to comprehend that God Himself is reality. He was not leaving me behind, but inviting me into the New Covenant blessing. It is not a good life but Christ as life. He was unveiling a reality not defined through the finite but through the infinite, God Himself.

The New Testament presents a definition of life very different from the things that happen to us. This view is on virtually every page, but we are often so stuck in the old definition of life and reality that we cannot see it. Like the people in Jesus’s day, we keep hoping the God will get rid of the Romans in our lives and give us our definition of prosperity. This was not the Christ’s mission back then, and it still isn’t today. He came to make God our reality. The Old Covenant promise was finite. Ours is the infinite. Theirs was good happenings and bad when they disobeyed. Ours is a life that transcends good and bad.

Immediately, Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away. And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there. But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary. Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear.

But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”

And Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”

And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. (Matthew 14:22–32)

When Peter asked the Lord to call him out on the water, the Lord answered in a word. “Come!” Jesus could have stilled the waters before Peter took his first step. Yet, the Lord chose not to change what was happening. He merely invited Peter to come out in the midst of the storm and be with Him. When Peter began to walk on the waves, he had to make a decision. What defined the moment? Was it the storm or who Jesus is? As the waves crashed about him, he changed his mind and chose the finite storm as definitive, not the infinite Christ. He began to sink.

We make this same decision every day. What will define the day, the happenings, or who Christ is? Faith is not necessarily for stilling the storms of life. It is recognizing our togetherness with the Lord defines not only us, but every moment of our lives. It is walking in a life that is higher than life’s happenings, just as Peter, if only for a moment, walked above the waves below. We have a home that the eyes cannot see. To live there is to live in what is real.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…. (Ephesians 2:4–6)

We give glory to God by living in who He is in situations that seem contrary to who he is. The next time you are having a trying time in your life, ask yourself a simple question. Is Jesus still peace? If you believe He is, let who He is define the moment, not the happenings. If you do this, you will dance above the waves in the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Has your life ever looked empty? Perhaps everyone else’s life looks better than yours. You can feel left out and get mad at God, or you can ask a simple question. Is God still joy? If you trust in who He is, you can be full, even in the midst of emptiness. Happiness is fickle. It depends on happenings. Your joy is a Person who never changes.

Have the Romans ever come to your town, people who abuse and devalue you? You might be tempted to abuse and devalue them in return. If you do, you will miss an opportunity to behold the glory of God. Instead, stop and ask yourself, is God still love? If you believe, you will take part in something divine, the power to love your enemies.

So, what does it mean that Christ is reality? It means that who He is defines the moments, not the happenings. Who we are and what happens to us is defined in the context of union with Him. When we define existence apart from Christ, we default to the good/evil or good/bad paradigm. We live by the ego’s perceptions rather than God’s revelations. When we perceive the reality of who He is, we live in the truth, and the truth sets us free. Freedom is not the power to do or get what we want. Freedom never comes from the question “What’s in it for me?” True freedom is a Person in whom we live. It is freedom from wanting. It is the rest of knowing.

We have all asked God to change our lives. When we ask this, we either want the Lord to change our ways from evil to good or to change our lives from bad to good. To us, this is a changed life, but not to God. To give us what we want is often to give us our idols. An idol is any reality that is not God. So, He tears down old definitions of life based on who we are and what we have. This can be quite messy! Our illusions vanish and we are left face to face with the one who is reality. He has given us what we needed to be whole… the truth.

(1) In case you are worried, I am not talking about Pantheism, the idea that the universe is God. I believe God inhabits or fills His creation with His glory. Space/time is the place where the infinite and the finite become one.