Becoming what I am.

Over the past several months, with the help of some honest and loving friends, I have been experiencing a paradigm shift in my understanding of what it means to be a genuinely effective representative of Jesus Christ. 

Let me explain.

For the last three years, I have been doing the best I knew how to do to grow as Christian. I would read my Bible consistently, and  at times compulsively. I would fast, pray, and study. I would, and still do, volunteer in my local church and in small group ministries. However, I rarely felt like any of the disciplines that I was partaking in were bringing me any more certainty of my relationship with God, or of my belonging in the body. Instead, I felt that these disciplines were a search for an elusive confidence in God that I could not articulate or reproduce from the paradigm of "building relationship with God" as the primary goal.

I would experience this confidence at times, and it was exhilarating. Divine appointments would occur almost naturally, people would experience Jesus, and the Gospel would be proclaimed. However, I did not know how to walk in this consistently. In spite of experiencing a growing relationship with God, I did not feel like I had the courage, character, or gifting to consistently represent Jesus the way I saw the Scriptures calling me to.

As disciples of Jesus, we have the privilege, opportunity, honour, and responsibility of both presenting Jesus and representing Jesus to people who are alienated from and at enmity with the Father.

We present Jesus through clear preaching of the Word of God.

We represent Jesus through the way that we speak, act, relate to the world around us.

In Ephesians 4:12-15 we see a clear delineation between the job descriptions of the five-fold ministry, who minister primarily to the church, and the saints, who present and represent Christ to the world. Our responsibility as church leadership is described as following: "...to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ...".  God has called us to represent Jesus in every way, and for the church to train and build up the body to this end.

James 1:22  thee difference between a "personal faith," and a belief system that transforms the life of the believer. "But be doers of the world, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in the mirror, For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like, But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing." These verses give us an incredible insight into how to read the Bible. When we look into the law of liberty, we are seeing who God has already made us to be in Christ. 

The crucial issue for us as believers in learning to represent the King in character ("fruit of the Spirit") and gifting ("gifts of the Spirit") is identity.  For better or for worse, the way we think and what we believe about ourselves manifest in every interaction we have. In Romans 12, Paul exhorts us be not "conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds," and "to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." If our thinking about ourselves has been not been renewed to what the Word of God has said about us in Christ, we will represent Christ from a place of brokenness and striving towards "a better relationship with God". This accounts for so much of the frustration and lack of effective ministry that we have experienced as we have tried to share Christ without knowing our identity in Him. On the other hand, if our minds have been renewed, and we know and understand the new relationship with God and the new nature that has already been given to us in Christ, we will represent Christ by default, walking in a genuine and loving confidence towards God and people, because of the understanding that "as he is so also are we in this world."


The purpose of this blog is to share what I see when I "look into the mirror," and to share testimonies of my successes and failures as I learn to be a "doer" and begin to live from my true identity as a "new man" in Christ. My purpose is not to bash the church or other believers, but rather to encourage others to look into the Word to find who they truly are, so that the world can see Jesus manifest in our lives as we learn our identities in Him.


In Jesus

Brahm van der Breggen



PS - Several members of my cell have also requested that I put together a reading list from Scripture to learn how to relate to ourselves from the perspective of the finished work; over the following weeks I will be posting a weekly reading plan with a brief study guide to help us begin to ask the right questions as we approach the Word and discover the significance of the cross to our daily lives and relationships. My hope is that this blog will be a place where our cell can dialogue throughout the week as we learn and grow in the knowledge of God in Christ.