"Fear God, Love God, Serve God": Who Are We?

Who Are We?

"For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring."

(Acts 17:28)

The Apostle Paul was brilliant, and besides that, he knew how to witness. He was speaking wisely to pagan philosophers and he told them that we are created beings countering the Greek thought that men were gods. Idolatry and false worship were rampant during this time; there was no other place on earth at the time where so many idols were exhibited. Idol worship was the very thing that caused God to punish Israel over and over again. Paul began preaching to them about the death and resurrection of the Messiah. The philosophers then identified Paul as one who was preaching about "foreign gods," because they prided themselves that they always wanted to know about new gods, so their interest was peeked. Herein ensues the questions with which they were intrigued, and which the world is still asking, Who is God ... and "Who Are We?"

Apostle Paul

Matthew Henry's commentary says it like this, "Paul's audience was very hard to preach to. The Epicureans believed everything evolved; they did not have a concept of creation. The Epicureans believed that the world was made accidentally by atoms which have been in perpetual motion from the beginning and had brought this form. Aristotle's school held that the world was from eternity, and everything always was from eternity, and every thing always was what it now is."

The Epicureans held the view that the world was not made by God. Paul explained that it was God who made all things, that He could not be confined in temples made with hands; therefore the gods worshipped in their temples was not the true God. Paul based this on Isaiah 66:1-2, "Thus says the LORD: Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest? For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist," Says the LORD.

In verse 26, He hath made of one blood (meaning Adam) all nations of men. Paul was showing our common origin. The pagan philosophers held in high esteem a Cicilian poet Aratus, who said, "It is with Zeus that every one of us in every way has to do, for we are also his offspring." Paul infers the absurdity of their idolatry by quoting their own poet. "Paul used another pagan source to confirm the truth of the Bible, not the reverse. He was showing them that even their own poets had some knowledge (though corrupted) of the God he is speaking to them of, that they do not know. Paul introduced them to Jesus Christ using terms such as "offspring" of which they were already familiar, and brought to bear the truth of the Word of God.

We are created in the likeness of God; the definition of "offspring" is: a descendent, product or consequence of something or someone. Hebrews 2:11 says, "Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers."

Almighty God is Jesus Christ our Lord, and WE are made in His image or likeness. What does the God of the universe pray? He told us what to pray:

We have the key to this hour, "in earth as it is in heaven." To pray like God is to see like God sees, think like God thinks, and do what God does. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 2:5) We are His hands and His feet in earth; we lay hands on people by the Name of Jesus, the Word of Jesus, and the Blood of Jesus for deliverance, for healing, for casting out devils, for the infilling of the Holy Ghost, for peace and clarity of mind and spirit ... We do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever will be done in earth, for the purpose of God, will be done by His followers; so we must do it as He would do it ...

The Spirit of Jesus Christ living within us, when we are filled with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues, is the avenue to praying what God would pray, because sometimes we don't know what to pray, so the Spirit makes intercession for us. (Romans 8:26) We live and move and have our being in Him, Jesus Christ our Lord; He died, rose again, and sits on the right hand of power in heaven. His Church carries on His work; we are ambassadors for Christ ... the Christ people see today is the Christ they see in you and me ... "Who are We?"