Skip to main content

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. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Picture Perfect

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a god work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” They say that good things take time but to be completely and utterly transformed into the likeness of Jesus takes a lifetime. I will never reach perfection until I meet Jesus face to face at the gates of eternal paradise but this by no means indicates that He will keep me at a standstill. In fact, with confidence I am able to state that by His gracious hand, a good work has indeed begun within me and will continue as long as I remain willing. I have recently been reading “The Making of a Man of God”, written by Alan Redpath, which gives a clear summary of what having a willing heart looks like, stating: “Let a man be right with God, reconciled through the blood of the cross, humbled at the foot of Calvary; let him be broken, coming to God guilty and hopeless and needy; and at that moment God takes hold of him and transforms and uses all his ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Purposeful Waiting

Lamentations 3:25 “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.” Waiting is difficult. So much so that waiting on the Lord seems almost unbearable. Because of my fallen nature, my mind is consumed with self, focusing on fulfilling the desires of my own heart rather than walking the path of righteousness that the Lord has set forth in front of me. Why? Because I assume that the plans which I create for myself are better than the plans of the One who created me. The Lord knows the desires of my heart, He placed them there purposefully. If only I would surrender them to Him, waiting on His good and perfect timing would not become such a heartache. I would not have to bear the consequences of wrongful decisions because my reliance and trust that the Lord is going to provide for me will prevent me from falling into the lie that compromise is okay. Compromise is the enemy receiving victory as I settle for less than what the Lord so desperately wants to give me ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Running For His Glory

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore, I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: Not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run such a way that you may obtain it.” Matthew 22:14 sheds light on these verses as it states that, “Many are called but few are chosen.” Many are called to know Christ but few will choose the narrow path to follow HIm. The Christian life is difficult and being disciplined in the Lord can oftentimes give people a twisted perspective regarding who He really is. The Bible to some can seem like a ...
Post a Comment
Read more