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Vertical Identity

Psalms 139:13-14
“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.”
It is so easy to get caught up in the lies of the enemy who whispers in my ear that I am not good enough. It is so easy to look to the left and to the right at my sisters in Christ and compare myself to their seeming flawlessness, forgetting that Jesus died for their sins, too. Sure, I am louder and more outspoken than most, but this by no means indicates that the Lord loves me any less because He created me to be that way. It is only when I come to accept these aspects about myself that I consider to be so detrimental that the Lord can use them for His glory and my good. Does this mean that I will assume perfection? Absolutely not, but it does mean that I no longer have to be a slave to self-hatred. It means that I no longer have to rely on horizontal approval when my identity is found vertically in the life and death of Jesus Christ. It means that I can appreciate the inward and outward beauty of those around me without contemplating my own. Basking in envy has only given the enemy victory by hindering relationships that God has placed in my life to assist in growth. Of course, there will always be someone with a gift that I do not have, but if I am always consumed with their talent, I will bypass what the Lord has given me. Romans 12:4-5 reminds me, “For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.” There is but one body with many members and if each member was given the same role, how would the work of the Kingdom be completed? I cannot assume that because someone is better at something than I am that I am unimportant because just as I have been called to a specific role, as have they. By comparing myself to others, I prevent the body from working together as a whole because I am focused on what I cannot do rather than what the Lord has given me the strength to do. 

Application
This week, I will apologize to the teammates that I have been envious of because it has hindered our relational growth. 

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