Who Do You Think You Are?

I was listening to Joyce Meyer this morning and this phrase stuck out to me like a sore thumb and I just knew I had to share this message with you. One of the biggest statements that drag me down is this one, “Who do you think you are?” Joyce was saying this phrase comes from the devil. It appears as the first line of attack. But why this one? Why this phrase?

I think back to a time long ago when I had a loved one tell me who I am. They told me I was stupid, I was ignorant, I was too skinny, I was damaged goods, I was not worthy, and I was an embarrassment. Most of all, they said that no one really liked me, they just put up with me not to hurt my feelings. Like my existence was somehow my fault and I should be thankful others are willing to put up with me. That I should be sorry for even existing and causing people to waste so much energy on me. Honestly, I didn’t need to be told because their actions on how they treated me instilled it in me every day. I became who they said I was.

I believed every statement to be true, so I spent my time withdrawing, not standing up for myself, just doing what I could to get by. I did this because I felt guilt for just existing and felt judgement and condemnation by everyone. This person I had loved and trusted instilled a spirit of fear in me. A fear to stand out, a fear to achieve, a fear to trusting and believing that anything in life was possible. A fear that my existence on this earth was something I should spend my life apologizing to everyone for instead of being confident in who I was and who God made me to be. To this day, I still excuse myself as I walk past people, even if they cut me off. I do this as a submissive response to ask forgiveness for even being on their path as they walk through their life. Like I am some horrible obstacle that others still have to endure.

Why? Why this phrase? Why this person? Because Satan knew just how to shut me down and destroy whatever spirit I had within me. Satan’s goal is to tear you down, so you will not have the joy and freedom to be who you really are. Who God has meant you to be. Well, little did I know at that time, but Satan does not have the power to destroy my spirit. Crack it, break it, and scatter it into pieces he can do, but destroy it is not something he is allowed to do. He may do what he can do drag it down, to slow me down, to keep me from speaking out, for standing up for myself, for having a voice, and being proud of who I am. Thankfully, I have a Heavenly Father that can take all things bad and change them into good.

But how? How can you take someone with a broken, scattered spirit and put it back together? Well, one piece at a time. For me it started with being completely broken. As sad as this may seem and especially as scary as it was going through it, I am thankful for it. My brokenness brought me to a place that I needed to go before I was willing to let go of all that I thought of myself to be. I was brought to the place that I had nothing else to lose! Being in that state of mind and in that moment allowed me to lay aside all things that I had carried around for so long, and search out new truths and new beliefs about myself and my Heavenly Father. I was at a place that everything I had believed and carried with me to this point in my life was dragging me down. It was not holding me together; it was breaking me apart. Over and over again. Every time I would try to hang onto a belief that was wrong, another piece of me would break off. I was so focused with constantly defending myself that I could not live freely with being the person God planned for me to be. So, I started with getting help.

Help first from others who would support me. This was a group of people that I did not know. Doctors, therapist, and new friendships that I could be honest with. Honest about who I was, what I had been through and my state of mind that it had brought me too. Also, a new relationship with God as well. I threw out all the beliefs I had about God, but one. The one belief that He loved me and sent His son to die for me. Everything else I would let go off and start again. The relationships that I could not let go off I put up boundaries. These boundaries consisted of me being more assertive with them. By telling them what I needed, guarding how much information I gave them about my most sensitive of subjects, and not wavering on them. If I didn’t feel comfortable doing something, even family get togethers, I didn’t do it and I stopped forcing myself to do it out of guilt or being ashamed. I no longer let others have the power to condemn me and take their condemnation to heart. I left that up to my Savior who sent His son to die for me. How did I do that?

I got out my Bible and did the research. I research words like condemnation, judgement, love, forgiveness, suffering, sin, spiritual warfare, spiritual gifts, hope, faith, Jesus’ life on earth, etc. If I had a belief about it before, I looked up that belief to see what was true and what was a lie. I no longer depend on anything but the Holy Spirit and Gods word to guide my belief system. If I question it, if something doesn’t add up compared to my experience, I search it out. Most importantly I first searched out who God thinks I am. Who am I in Christ? What is my worth in God’s eyes? Then I found the story of the sparrow and my life changed. No longer was I a broken mess on the ground. The pieces of my life started coming together. One at a time. The first piece was my worth and Who I thought I was.

Slowly, and I mean slowly, I started seeing myself through my Fathers eyes. The more I read and researched my Bible the more I found my worth. The true definition of what love is and how it is expressed. The person I wanted to be. I wanted to be a person that was loved beyond measure and who could give that love to others in return. The Bible became a love story to me and not a story of fear, judgment, and condemnation. I still struggle somedays with being that insecure little girl who felt alone and a bother to everyone, but when I do I turn to the words that remind me who I am and live free in being myself and knowing I am loved regardless!

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. Matthew 10:28-32

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?Matthew 6:26

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. John 3:16-17

I pray if you feel as though you are also a broken pile of pieces that are not worthy to be placed back together, please pick up your Bible and search the truth of who you are in Gods eyes! It will change your whole life and give you a freedom you never thought was possible!
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Does Hope really have power? If so, How?

I thought four letter words were bad and should not be taken seriously until I met HOPE. In my deepest and darkest of moments I can say hope is something that seems non-existence and truly hard to grasp. It is hard to explain, but there are times when some emotions are almost impossible to remember or experience. I can remember being in misery for so long that I forgot what joy was or what it felt like, or how to conjure it up with thoughts. I would even take time to sit and meditate on joy and find there were no feelings to be found to follow through. Has this ever happened to you? I would tell my doctors that something is just missing and they would look at me with blank faces. Until one day I came across this verse and it made sense to me.

“Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” Romans 15:13 

So, I am going to break this verse down for you as the Holy Spirit has shown it to me.

  • Now God of hope – God is the beginning and ending of hope, the expert on hope, and the man upstairs who gives out hope.
  • Fill you with joy and peace – HE has the power to fill you with joy and peace. This tells us that joy and peace or linked to what we have hope in. If we lack hope then we don’t have joy and peace. There may be times as I have said before that I couldn’t muster up my joy and peace. In those times, I remember floundering because I had no answers or no Faith in what I was doing or putting my hope in. True hope can fill you with joy and peace.
  • In believing – The importance of our beliefs. This tells us the first place to look when our hope, joy and peace are disturbed is to look at what we believe in. For me, this one, is the key. I have often found myself believing in something that has no merit, no hope of a good end, and that is not what God wants for us. Other times there are beliefs that other say are true that are contradictor to your peace in God. When this happens, it is of great importance to look it up in your scripture and study the entirety of the answer. Look at the scripture in its setting and what is going on in the story as well as multiple scripture throughout the Bible talking about the same subject, then draw a conclusion. You will be amazed at what you find and peace in having a true answer and believing in it.
  • That ye may abound in hope – God’s desire is for us to abound and live with hope. Hope is what gets us through each day. You can have hope that the light at the end of the tunnel is God’s light shining for us a pathway to him, or you can believe its Satan standing with a flashlight leading you astray. Each belief has power, but which one has a path out of the dark pit, and which one leads you further down?
  • Through the power of the Holy Ghost – God has promised those who believe in him the gift of a comforter to abide with them. That comforter is the Holy Ghost. Some people recognized it as their conscience. Others as an entity to guide them right and wrong. I believe the Holy Ghost is many things, and you will find that as you study multiple scriptures on the subject, but in this verse, it defines the Holy Ghost as one who has power. Not just any power, but power to instill and give hope. The power to guide us to a place of hope again. I don’t think the Holy Ghost is necessarily like a fairy godmother that waves its magic wand and poof! You have hope again. I think the Holy Ghost is deliberate, careful, and slow to teach us how to have hope again. You know that saying, “give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime”? If the Holy Ghost just gave it to us, it would burn out when we used it all up, but if the Holy Ghost took the time to guide us on how to obtain and have hope, then we can acquire it at anytime in the future.

So many times, I would often get mad at God for not granting me hope that I had earnestly prayed for. Why would he want me to suffer so? This verse shows me that God does not want me to suffer, but that in doing things His way, He wants to grow me. Grow me to trust in Him and in His promises, grow me in my mental and emotional development, and grow me to understand the power I can have with his help to conquer the deepest and darkest of hopeless places. All it takes is a mustard seed of faith and we will see our mountains become small, our deeply planted roots of anguish uprooted and planted in the depths of the sea, and our lives flourish into a tree where others find hope and security. (Matthew 13:31, Mark 4:31, Luke 13:19, Luke 17:6)


 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: 
for verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, 
ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; 
and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Matthew 17:20