10 Important Truths That God Says About You
We all have labels written on our hearts.
One of the first ministries I ever worked with was a group that was fighting against human trafficking. They helped victims who had been sold as well as women who had chosen the life transition out of the sex industry into new lives and new careers.
One of the most frustrating and bewildering things about working with the girls was that we were giving them everything they could possibly need for success.
We provided a roof over their head, vocational training, and emotional support. These girls all wanted to change, most of them came to us asking for help, and yet within months and sometimes even weeks some of them went right back into the old behaviors and patterns we had just pulled them out of.
Labels formed from lies are very dangerous.
See something had happened to these girls. Because of the trauma they had been through, they believed these lies about themselves. These labels were written on their hearts that they weren't good enough, they weren't smart enough that they couldn't do anything more, that they weren't worth anything more. We weren't able to change their behavior until we first changed their heart issues.
The difference between the woman who made no change at all and the ones who went on to ultimate recovery was one choice and it’s the same choice we are all faced with any time we come across a circumstance we don’t understand.
Am I going to choose to look at my circumstances and walk by sight based on my limited viewpoint, or am I going to walk by faith and trust that what God says about me and himself is true?
If he’s powerful enough to place all the stars in the sky and he’s loving enough to send his son to die in my place, then it must also be true that he is working out a plan for our lives. That our lives hold purpose and value and we have meaning.
The world shouts lies at us on a pretty consistent basis not only about God and his faithfulness but as I mentioned in the case with the girls he shouts lies about us. Most times when we feel down it is because we are believing one of these lies.
I want to take one minute and remind you of the truth about who you are.
You were fearfully and wonderfully made.
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
2. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.
“I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
3. You are a child of God.
“ Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—”
4. You are wise and righteous.
“It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.”
5. You are redeemed and forgiven.
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”
6. You have a great inheritance.
“In him, we were also chosen,[a] having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,”
7. You are chosen and loved by God… He knows every hair on your head.
“ For we know, brothers and sisters[a] loved by God, that he has chosen you,”
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
8. You are God’s incredible work of art.
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
9. You are valuable and created in God’s likeness.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
“and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
10. You are loved and nothing can separate you from the love of God.
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,”