 I grew up in a Christian household. I knew about God. I got told about Jesus, but I didn't feel God. I didn't feel Jesus. I didn't feel the Holy Spirit. I didn't hear from Him. I read the Bible occasionally, but it felt like a dry book. Sure, I wanted to know God, but I didn't know how. And I was struggling with insecurities, with fear, with doubt, with this crushing weight on my shoulders and my anxiety. And all that I could figure out to do to remedy this was clinging so tightly to the things that I knew would give me some semblance of peace. And so, whether that was trying to be a good person, trying to appear as a good person to other people of my identity, I clung so deeply onto that or my money and trying to earn as much as I can to save, to have a bank account that I could look at and say, okay, I'm okay. And so long, I tried to figure out how to know God. And what I didn't realize was the path to knowing God is about giving up. It's about giving up in three different ways that we're going to talk about today. The first way is giving up your identity. We're going to go to John 4 to learn about another woman who had to give up her identity in order to know God. This is what Jesus said to this Samaritan woman at the well. He said, Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. And the woman answered, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you're right in saying I have no husband for you have five husbands and the one you are with right now is not your husband. So this woman's identity was tied up in sexual promiscuity. And I don't know about for you what your identity is tied up in, whether it's the sins that you've committed in your past or the successes of your past or the successes of your future or the sins of your present, whatever your identity, however you see yourself, when you cling so tightly to that old identity that either brings you security or you get tied up in such a way that that shame kind of overwhelms you, that's preventing you from actually finding God. You see, she had to come face to face with her sin. She had to come face to face with who she truly was. And Jesus was blatant about this. He was blunt about it and it shocked this woman because she wondered, okay, who are you? Are you a prophet or what's going on here? Jesus ends up telling her about the fact that he is this water of life, this living water that will satisfy her. After Jesus reveals himself to her as the Messiah, she goes joyfully into the town proclaiming him as Christ. So she had to come face to face with her identity, with her sin, about the fact that she was a sinner. And we have to come face to face with our shame, with our guilt, with our sin. But then Jesus is ushering us into a new identity. She went from promiscuous to proclaim her of the gospel. For me, that identity was being a good Christian. I thought I was a good Christian. I portrayed to the world that I was a good Christian. I show up early for church just to sit on the nearest pew to where I knew the pastor was going to come in and see that I was reading my Bible. And he would think, oh man, Isaac is such a strong Christian. He's such a good kid. And yet that was just my portrayal of a good Christian. And my heart was sin. It was rebellion. It was pride. It was fear. It was anxiety. I had to let go of that. Even though it was built out of self-protection, it was actually killing me from the inside. God doesn't want good Christians or fake Christians. He wants humble, repentant Christians, humble, repentant children who ask him, who plead with him for a new identity. The second thing that we need to give up in order to know God is what we have. We need to give up what we have. It reminds me of a story where Jesus talks to this rich young ruler. And this rich young ruler says, hey, God, like what good work must I do to enter the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus says, you know, you need to obey your mother and father. You need to adhere to the commandments. You need to do all of these things. And he says, hey, Jesus, I've done this. And maybe this reflects on us. We say, hey, you know, God, I did all the things I was supposed to do. So can I enter the kingdom of God? And Jesus says, well, you need to give away all your possessions then to the poor. And this startles him. This strikes him. And he goes away sad. Why does he go away sad? Well, that was the thing that he clung onto for his security. That was the thing that he clung onto that it gave him a sense of peace. Or maybe that was greed in his heart that he wanted to hoard this stuff for himself. That maybe he could do all these other things. Maybe he did honor his father and his mother. And he did, you know, honor the Sabbath and he did adhere to the other commandments. Maybe that wasn't too hard for him. But it was this thing, this idol in his life that was so hard for him to give up. And that's why he walked away from Jesus. And that's startling for us because it goes to tell me that there are going to be some things in your life that are going to be easy. Some areas of following Christ are going to be really easy for you. And you're going to maybe, you know, feel like, hey, I'm a pretty good person. Like maybe honoring my father and my mother is pretty easy for me or going to church or reading the Bible. But then there's something behind the scenes. Maybe it's watching pornography. And this is your kind of escape. This thing you keep separate from Jesus that you just don't want to give up. And yet God is saying, hey, you need to give up all the sin that you have in your life. All these things that you're hoarding for yourself that you think are going to bring you pleasure. Maybe you'd like the rich young ruler, it's your money. You don't want to give it up. You have a bank account. You have a nest egg that you know, maybe it's some investments. Hey, I'm going to be safe. And there's nothing wrong with being responsible or prepared or, you know, providing for your family or being wealthy. And that's a great thing. Wonderful. If you're doing it honorably and with integrity. But if you're hoarding that for yourself, if you're not being generous with it, if you're using that as a path to peace, then you're going to miss out on actually knowing God because he is the path to peace. I'm convinced that so many people have a surface level knowledge of God and relationship with him. They may be Christians, right? They may be saved, but the relationship really stops here. And it's because they haven't given these things over to God because they're scared. Because they're scared. What are you going to do with these things? God, we're scared for him to break us rightfully so. But that fear leads us to withholding things from him, whether it's stuff, whether it's our possessions, whether it's our time, whether it's our secret sins. We don't want to give those things over to him because we're scared. We're scared about what might happen. But what I found is the people that have been forced to give these things up, maybe it's they've gone through financial struggle or maybe they've been exposed in some way. A sin issue has come to the forefront and they've had to deal with it. They have come out on the other end, more close to Christ. Now, sometimes it does break them, but sometimes now if they're committed to Christ, then it does come bring them on the other end and they are closer to him. They're more reliant on him. They're more trusting of him because if God can get you through that, then he can get you through anything. But so many of us are scared about putting anything in God's hands, even though everything is already in his hands anyway, but we like to have this facade of control. Talking about possessions, it reminds me of Matthew 25. When Jesus said that whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me. So when you bring somebody in from the street into your home, when you feed them a meal, when you give them a place to stay, these are the things that you're doing for me. The third thing that we must give up in order to know God in a deep and intimate way is we must give up our dream. This passage in Matthew 16 is helpful. It talks about Jesus' ministry. It says from that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him saying, Far be it from you, Lord, this shall never happen to you. But he turned and said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan. You are a hindrance to me for you're not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man. Put yourself in Peter's shoes for a second. This is a gang of guys. They're doing ministry with Jesus, the Savior, the Messiah, the Christ. And things are, you know, they're healing people. Jesus is doing these miracles. He's going from place to place. He's teaching in power that they've never seen before. And maybe Peter begins to think to himself, he's like, We can do this forever. We're going to spread this message across the whole world. We're going to be like a family here. We're going to do our thing. Jesus is going to be our leader and it's going to be wonderful. And this was the dream that he had. But then Jesus starts talking about the fact that he's going to die, that he's going to suffer. And maybe he does it with Agni, some, you know, some sorrow in his voice. And he's saying that these things are going to come to pass. These things are going to happen, guys. You need to be aware of this. You need to be prepared. And Peter says, I don't want this God. This is not my dream. My dream is that we, you are here with us. You were leading us. You can't do this to us. Jesus rebukes Peter. He says, get behind me, Satan. You're a hindrance to my mission. You were thinking about the things of man rather than things of God. How often do we cling onto our dream of how we want our life to go? And we are hindering God's mission. We are thinking about the things of man rather than the things of God. Now, guys, I have to be honest with you. This is one of the hardest things to let go. You're a Christian. You've given your identity to him. You're asking him to transform you daily. You're a child of his. You're giving up what you have to him on a daily basis. And you're asking him to use it and that you'd steward it well. And yet you still have these desires and these dreams in your heart. And these things, maybe it's about having a family or these things you want to do in your career or having a big ministry or being successful at something or having a meaningful relationship with someone. And you have these dreams of how it's going to go. And what God asks you to do often is to release one of those dreams, is to release those dreams. And it's not to say that they won't happen, but it is to say that you cling so tightly onto those things as your peace, as your satisfaction, as, you know, God, make these things go well for me. These are my expectations of how my life is going to go in order for me to really enjoy it, in order for me to be at peace, in order for me to sleep well at night. I need these things, God. These are my dreams. And God says, my child, I am your dream. I am the thing that you most long for. I'm the thing that you ought to look to for satisfaction, because your life will not be perfect. And if you haven't experienced it already, your dreams, not all of them will come true. Not in the way that you expect them to. And that is some of the most painful work that God does within us because He's causing us to let go of this ideal of how we want our life to go. And He says, look, in the midst of the sorrow of this broken dream, you're going to find me in a deeper, more intimate way than you ever could have. You're going to find me in a more real way, because if you never experience anything real, if you never experience any real heartbreak, if you never experience any real sorrow over what you wanted to be, then you'll never need to look deeply into your own heart and realize you don't have what it takes. You'll feel like you will be crushed, but it is God who can deliver you out of that. And that's why you look to Him. Now, you often don't have a choice in this, whether you give up your dream or not, because your dream just might not come true. And you either have the decision to let that heartbreak lead you into hardness or tenderness. You have the decision to let it lead you into tenderness or into bitterness against God. So many people live in bitterness and anger and just hatred towards God over their dreams that were crushed. And you hear atheists talk about this. How could a loving God allow this to happen to me? You can go down that route. You can. But if you want to find God, if you want to meet Him in an intimate way, then you need to cry out to Him and let this heartbreak soften you. Now, in the midst of this, the truth is God finds us. Now, we can find Him. We let go of the things that we have. We let go of our identity. We let go of our dreams. And God beats us. He meets us in every moment of every day. He will never leave us, and nor forsake us. Nothing can separate us from His love as His children. And you need to know that. His grace is there for you as a gift. It's not something that you earn. It's not something that you've gained by what you've done. It's an act of grace on His part. And so, as much as we try to find God, He is always the one meeting us and finding us by His grace because we don't deserve Him. You know, if God decided to make Himself absent, we'd never find Him. But He's there for us. And that's why He is available to us. And I'd ask you to give up. I'd ask you to give up to see the end of yourself. And in the midst of this giving up, God will meet you just like He met me. Thanks for watching this video. If you enjoyed it, subscribe because I'm putting out new videos all the time. A huge thank you to everyone on Patreon, the Daily Disciple Patreon that supports this work on this channel and on TikTok and on Instagram and all sorts of other places because it is so wonderful that you guys can support what I'm doing and helping people follow Jesus daily. That's the mission of my heart and you guys enable me to do that. So thank you so much. And until next time, God bless.