One of the many stunning claims Jesus made was: “Those who have seen me has seen the Father.” Jesus claimed He was the visible expression of God. He further said: “If you had known Me you had known my Father.” Moreover; “I come from Him and He has sent me here.”
Those are bold statements! I assume you are well aware of that they are valid for you too? Born of the Spirit you come from God sent here as a witness about Him. Those who have seen you have seen the Father. As was the case for Jesus, the likelihood that the world recognizes you as a visible expression of God is rather small.
The religious will say about you as they did about the crowd who followed Jesus: “They, who know nothing about the law, is damned anyway.” The legalists will further mock you and say: “Look where you will – you won’t find any prophet coming from Galilee.” Galilee is your hometown, my friend.
You are God’s visible glory! We are stunned by how God empties Himself again and again in order to be found in humans like you and me. However, that was the original plan when God created Adam in His likeness, a shadow of Himself, if you like. You are restored to your original design and thus an outshining of His glory.
Those who know you know the Father. This is simply too much for our mind to grasp. It transcends understanding. The Spirit, however, convicts us about the truth and our faith irrevocably becomes substance. Appearances easily deflect our appropriating of this all encompassing identification with our Father. However, faith supersedes any appearance so that faith becomes our reality as the Spirit does His work in us.
Please acknowledge that you are His glory and an image of Him regardless of circumstances. If He was willing to be found in a manger when Jesus was born, He is willing to be found in your life’s circumstances no matter how grim. You are His beloved daughter or son. Don’t let condemnation which is a product of appearances rob you from your confidence before Him and heritage in Him.
The Mystery Revealed 
Were you writing that to just me? Sure feels like it. Good stuff.
Years ago my good friend told me not to talk to her about God. So I did not talk to her about becoming a Christian for over 25 years and sometimes I felt badly about not speaking. But I did tell her how I did life and who God was in my life when it came up. At one point her life hit the skids and she was overwhelmed. God sent some Christian women into her life who ministered to her in the middle of her crises over a period of 2 years. It was interesting because she mentioned that there were two women encouraging her and that they reminded her of me. As it turned out I happened to know them and knew we looked nothing alike and our personalities were not really similar but what I knew we had in common was all 3 of us were believers. What God made me realize was that what she was seeing was God in us. All those years of not being able to “speak” God was speaking and she saw Him in me and these other two women of God. That was such a good picture for me to see, that even when I seemed to be doing nothing God was doing everything. I had chosen to be who I was in Christ around her, saying nothing more than who He was to me. No preaching, no sermons etc. And God was and she saw Him.
Perhaps I wrote it to you 🙂
The testimony you share with us is a most astounding confirmation of what I have attempted to pen down! Thanks for sharing! I was tremendously blessed by reading your account!
Thank you for your message. I agree with all that you say and I will forward this post to everyone on my EMail adddress list. I look forward to receiving on going messages from you. thank you, Dolores Johnson