When people say untrue things about you and you believe them, you begin to build a false identity. Your understanding of yourself is not based on reality.
- Maybe you are intelligent but you had learning difficulties at school. Your parents or teachers said you were not very smart and you believed them.
- There are also parents who idolise their oldest or youngest child. He grows up thinking he is a genius who knows better than everybody else. How sad!
- A girl who grew up in a very dysfunctional family. She had serious emotional problems and her parents told her she was schizophrenic. As a young adult she saw a good psychiatrist. After careful assessment, the psychiatrist confidently assured her she was not schizophrenic at all.
- Supposing a very intelligent person goes through troubled times and cries out to God. He joins an apparently dynamic Bible based church and God begins to help him with his serious problems. This young convert has a good education, a lively imagination and a God given gift for bold, creative, original and sometimes critical thinking.
- The first church he joins is rigid and authoritarian. Conformity and passive submission is expected and often harshly enforced. The young convert is told he is rebellious, proud and demonised.
- If he accepts the teachings of the religious preacher, he believes a mixture of truth and lies. He no longer knows who he is.
God sees you differently.If you are a truly converted believer in Jesus Christ, you may be assured that:You are a son or daughter of the living God.God loves you with all of His heart.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)
God made you as you are and He never makes junk.
- Not only that but what you see in yourself now is only a pale shadow of the wonderful person God sees you as, a man or woman created in the image of the glorious eternal God Himself.
But Bible truth alone is not enough. You must come to know the ONE who stand behind His promises.
- If you learn to know God personally, He can teach you who He is and who you are.
If you only know what other people teach about God, your faith can become a copy of someone else’s thinking rather than the personal adventure of discovery that God wants you to have. If you base your life on other people’s thoughts, you cannot fully understand who God is or who you are.
- Even good Bible teaching or accurate prophecy is not enough by itself.
- Heavenly truth is like a seed. You must learn to apply it to your life and situation.
Only the Holy Spirit Himself can make the good seed grow in you the way God intends. Only with God can you discover who you really are.
God made every one of His sons and daughters for a unique purpose. You are not a copy of any other believer, nor should you try to be one.
One key to finding release from this prison of unknowing is our dreaming, our daydreams and secret desires.
We can see this clearly in two Bible characters.
- Saul was a young Jewish scholar who dreamed of becoming a great rabbi. He was a champion of the truth and righteousness of God. He hated and persecuted the Christians but when he was converted, he became the great theologian and apostle of the New Covenant of faith and grace.
- His original dream was not entirely wrong. It was a God given clue to his destiny.
Moses dreamed of liberating his captive Hebrew countrymen but he got it wrong. He killed an Egyptian and was seen by both Egyptians and Hebrew as a murderer. His dream was from God but he needed to be changed by God, so he could fulfil his dream WITH God.
- God has created you. You have dreams and desires.
- Why not ask God to shine His light on your secret dreams and reveal the true purpose of your life?
The Father gave His only son Jesus for ALL mankind. In return, the Father wants to give ALL mankind to Jesus.
Why do not all come to Jesus?
All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. John 6:37 (NKJV)
Does God only draw some to Himself and to His Son?
Jesus said:
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw ALL people to myself.” John 12:32 (ESV)
Jesus was lifted up from the earth on the cross, when He willingly died to pay the penalty for our sin, to receive the punishment for our rejection of our loving God because we chose to live as though He did not love and care for us.
Jesus died but He did not stay dead.
- After three days in the grave, He was bodily raised up from the grave by the Holy Spirit.
- He spent 40 days encouraging and teaching His followers before He was raised up from the earth again.
While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. Luke 24:51 (ESV)
The heart of the Father is to save every one of His lost children.
- Without Jesus in your life, you are separated from God by your own choice because you have chosen not to live in the Father love of God.
- You have lost your right to be called a son or daughter of God.
- God is the source and giver of all life and goodness.
- If you die without Jesus, you will still exist and you will experience the darkness and emptiness of death for ever.
If you are not enjoying the love and forgiveness of God but you are reading these words, God is speaking to you calling you to come to Jesus.
- God sent His son into the world to restore everyone to Himself but He was rejected and put to death.
- He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, John 1:10,12 (ESV)
Why did God do this? Because GOD IS LOVE.
He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:8 (NKJV)
God’s plan is that you would find His love in a church but sadly this sometimes does not happen.
- If you have not found the love of Jesus in a church, don’t give up on God.
- If churches have rejected you, Jesus has not stopped loving you.
All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. John 6:37 (NKJV)
If you come to Jesus by watching Christian TV or reading the Bible alone, God is loving you and not casting you out. If you are an isolated believer in Jesus, God wants something better for you.
And the LORD God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him." Genesis 2:18 (NKJV)
If you are a man or woman who is following Jesus alone, God is proud of you for not giving up on His Son but He wants you to have human companionship.
Ask Him to lead you into Christian friendship.
- This is more important than marriage. Marriage can be a blessing or a curse.
- This is more important than going to church or joining an organisation.
- Churches can be loving or they can destroy love.
But one great truth remains.
Jesus is with you if you love Him and He is very powerfully present when two or three believers come together because they love Him.
- I pray that you will know the love of Jesus.
- I pray that you will find a loving church.
- I pray that you will enjoy loving family life.
- But even if you do not find a loving church or family, I pray that you will discover the blessing of believing friendship.
For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them." Matthew 18:20 (NKJV)
