Love Yourself and Enjoy Life!
Do
you feel unloved and rejected by those around you and perhaps even by
God? When you make mistakes, are you often overwhelmed with the feeling
that you are somehow flawed and inferior?
We have an epidemic of insecure people in our society today.Many people have an identity crisis because they don't really know who they
are and they base their worth and value on all the wrong things – what
they do, what they look like, who they know, what they know or what they
own.
What do you think of yourself? How do you feel about
yourself? Do you ever compare yourself with other people and feel
belittled if you can't do what they can do or be like them? Have you
ever said "I wish I looked like her" or "I wish I had what they have" or
"I wish I could do what you do"?
Everyone experiences insecurity
at times. I know what's it's like to feel inferior to others and
insecure about myself. I grew up in a very unstable, volatile home
environment and never really felt safe and secure throughout my
childhood. That's why it's very important to me to feel safe and secure
in my life now.
The good news is, we don't have to live insecure
lives because it's God's will for us to be very secure and not to live
in fear. We were created to feel safe, secure, confident and bold; it's
part of our spiritual DNA as born-again believers in Christ. But the key to living a secure life in Christ is knowing who you are in Christ,
really receiving God's love for you, and basing your worth and value on
who God says you are, not what you do.
One thing that really
helped me get a revelation about this is Isaiah 54:17: "But no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue that shall
rise against you in judgment you shall show to be in the wrong. This
[peace, righteousness, security, triumph over opposition] is the
heritage of the servants of the Lord…."
This scripture clearly
states that as servants and children of God, it's part of our inherited,
blood-bought right through our relationship with Jesus Christ to be
secure. We are joint heirs with Jesus and whatever He has, we get. But
we have to take it by faith, which means we believe it before we see it.
And since we believe what we say about ourselves more than what others
say, we each need to speak what the Bible says about us as children of
God to overcome the negative, defeating opposition in the world that
wants us to see ourselves compared to others, not who we are in Christ.
Another
thing I needed revelation about was the love of God for me. The first
message I preached in my public ministry was about God's love for us. I
didn't really want to do it because I felt like it wasn't a powerful,
new message and people already knew God loves them. But the Lord
impressed on my heart that many people don't understand His love for
them, and if they did, they would act a whole lot different than they
do. They wouldn't get caught up in competition, compare themselves to
others, be afraid of their mistakes or afraid of admitting weaknesses if
they were secure in God's love.
First John 4:18 says, "There is
no fear in love…but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns fear out
of doors and expels every trace of terror!"
This opened my eyes to
the fact that I was one of those people. So for the next year, I focused my Bible study on the love of God, and during that time, I
received my own personal revelation of God's unconditional love for me
and acceptance of me.
Getting a revelation of God's unconditional
love helped me understand that my worth and value are based on the fact
that I'm a child of God, not on what I do. This is so important because
if we believe God loves us based on what we do or how well we perform,
we will never be truly secure and stable in our relationship with Him.
Really!!!
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