Are you attempting to maintain an equilibrium in your life by doing everything perfectly? I did this for most of my life. I wanted to feel accepted, loved, cherished, appreciated and accomplished. However, we rarely live up to our expectations for our self.
Satan makes sure that we feel shame regardless of how well we do. He lies to us, and uses the "voice" in our head to make us insecure about our performance, and about who we are in the very core of our existence.
We can only love others as we love our self (Matthew 22:39). If we do not love our self, we use addictive behaviors to anesthetize our pain. Then, we are dwarfed emotionally, and we rarely have enough emotional and physical energy to effectively love others.
It is only as we give the devil our permission to torment us, because of our insecurities and fears, that we are tempted to believe his lies. The only way to find freedom from this demonic stronghold over our life is to draw near to God for His healing, to resist the devil’s lies, and then he HAS to flee from us (James 4:7).
As we trust in the Lord each moment of our day, we walk in His will, and we know without a doubt that we can accomplish everything that God requires of us, because of Christ in us (Philippians 4:13). Christ in us provides us with the courage to be less than perfect.
Christ in us enables us to be our best self, and to trust God to make up for our insufficiencies. We are complete in Him (Colossians 2:10). Our true value comes from our relationship to our God and King: a child of God and a co-heir with our King (Romans 8:17).
This fact eliminates our identity crisis. Other people may reject, disparage, criticize, belittle or despise us, but we are accepted in the Beloved Body of Christ (Ephesians 1:6). God uses trials and patience to perfect us (James 1:3-4).
Prayer:
Father God, help us to do our best and to trust You for the rest. As we live according to Your plan for us, controlled and guided by Your Spirit, we find both success and fulfillment in this life and in the next. Our value as a human being comes from our relationship with You, not from any intrinsic goodness of our own (Ephesians 2:8-9, 16-19).
Our enemies may attempt to destroy us, devalue us and reject us, but You are our hope of glory, and the lifter of our head in times of discouragement and defeat (Psalm 3:3). Jesus already paid our sin debt, and He made a way for You to adopt us as Your children. We trust in You and rejoice in our relationship with You, which will last throughout eternity.
Thought for the Day:
Shame envelops us when we believe what Satan and other people say about us; however, when we consider what Jesus did for us on Calvary's Cross, we realize just how special we truly are, and that we can accomplish everything that God calls us to do through His sufficiency within us.
