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Identity in Christ

Living with Eternal Purpose

Living With Eternal Purpose: No Guts No Glory

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Do you ever feel like just being yourself is too risky? The cost of authenticity might be rejection, but the rewards lead to a life full of purpose. When you embrace who God created you to be, challenges will come—but so will deep joy and meaning. When we live in alignment with God’s design, we experience a glimpse of heaven—a foretaste of the eternal—shaping our journey with divine purpose.

Yet, too often fear holds us back. We hesitate to be vulnerable, to speak honestly, to pursue what truly matters. Why? Because rejection and failure seem unbearable. But what if we could shift our focus, seeing beyond temporary discomfort to the eternal reality that awaits us? Living with this perspective changes everything.

In another post, I wrote about the benefits of imagining what heaven will be like. I asked, “How would seeing the most optimistic vision impact how you live today?” One person’s response perfectly captures the shift from despair to hope that I aimed for. He gave me permission to share his answer:

I enjoyed the post you wrote on Heaven. Thanks for posing the question. It gave me a chance to think about what the rest of my life could look like and how it could begin to move in that direction even now. Knowing what heaven is like and who I am as God’s finished product would change how I live the rest of my days on earth.

During a recent checkup, my doctor said, “You look pretty good for someone who almost died a year ago.” Coming face-to-face with death has me thinking more about how I want to be remembered.

If I knew what God plans for me in heaven, I could risk being that person more on earth, no matter what others thought of me, because I would know it pleased God. I should be doing that anyway, but I struggle to be the best version of me. I want to:

  • be more unselfish, putting others’ needs before my own.
  • be more transparent about my feelings and not be concerned about how that would look to others.
  • speak what is in my heart; I wouldn’t be unkind, but I would be free to disagree with others and risk being rejected and isolated from others.
  • be more vulnerable to love others and help them, no matter what it costs me emotionally or materially.
  • be more humble, living out my purpose of bringing glory to God and doing things that have eternal value, not just what has meaning for my time on earth.

Acting in this way would bring more meaning to my remaining time here, leave an eternal mark, and make something in my life worth remembering to those I leave behind.

Imagining heaven’s best helps me trust God more (I can see why He led me through what He did) and value what He values. I want to see with a better perspective what is important in this life, and what matters so little because it won’t be coming with me into heaven.

This perspective has the power to transform how we live. What if, instead of fearing failure or rejection, we boldly stepped into the identity God designed for us?

How to Step Boldly into Purpose—Without Regrets

It’s easy to get stuck in hesitation, waiting for the “right time” to start living boldly. But if you knew heaven was ahead, what would you risk today to embrace the person God designed you to be?

  • Maybe you need counseling to heal from past wounds that keep you from fully stepping into your purpose.
  • Maybe it’s time to invest in a book that guides you toward deeper faith and self-awareness.
  • Maybe you need to start small, choosing one area of your life to surrender fear and embrace authenticity.

The challenge is real, the risk feels great—but the reward is eternal.

How about you? What will your life look like if you live with no regrets? No guts, no glory. When you risk being who God made you to be, God is glorified.

And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

Romans 8:17 NLT

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Last Updated 20250420

Find and Accept Your Authentic Self

Find And Accept Your Authentic Self

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If you’re unable to accept yourself, you’re likely missing out on joy. To maximize joy you must appreciate both God and yourself. How can a person worship God but hate himself? How can a person like herself but hate God? The two must go together to maximize enjoyment of life.

How to Reject Your Authentic Self

God created you as you are for a specific reason. Life’s bumps and bruises can deceive you into believing you are someone more or less than you are. If you are not gifted athletically (or some other enviable ability) but compare yourself to those who are, you’ll always come up short and feel less than.

Have you ever tried something and felt inadequate? Or maybe someone told you that you didn’t measure up? If you can walk away understanding, “this isn’t for me,” then you have a healthy perspective. If you conclude that you are defective, you are making it personal, which isn’t helpful.

Are you measuring yourself with the right ruler? God measures you by His original design. Everything else will give you a faulty or inaccurate measurement. But more than that, you’ll feel miserable because there is no way for you to win.

Proverbs 11:1 declares that God detests deception in dealings with others. How can you deal honestly with others if you don’t first deal honestly with your value?

The Lord detests the use of dishonest scales, but he delights in accurate weights.

Proverbs 11:1 NLT

Are you weighing your value with honest scales? Romans 12:3 communicates the same idea.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

Romans 12:3 ESV

It’s possible to think you accept yourself when you don’t. It’s possible to live with the heavy burden of trying to be who you think God wants you to be. But that can be different than who God knows you to be.

Are you living with an uncomfortable tension of always pushing yourself to reach some ever-elusive goal? If so, you’re never going to reach self-acceptance. You can’t perform your way to acceptance.

How to Discover Your Authentic Self

God’s acceptance is free for His children. Even though we don’t have to work for our value, we must learn our value by who God made us to be.

Below are 7 questions to help you assess how well you know yourself and how consistently you present yourself. Answer the first 3 questions to determine your self-image (how you see and value yourself), the second 3 questions to define how you feel obligated to act to fulfill life’s demands (how others see and value you), and the seventh question to consider God’s perspective (how He sees and values you).

  1. The thing I like most about myself is…
  2. I’m at my best when I contribute…
  3. I feel most connected to God when I…
  4. Others appreciate me for…
  5. My job requires me to…
  6. I feel like a fish out of water when I…

The final seventh question is this: Describe yourself as God sees you through His loving, creative eyes. Be specific. Generate your answer from your heart. Provide a detailed answer related to how uniquely God created you. Now, compare your answers between all the questions. How consistent (or inconsistent) are you?

How to Accept Your Authentic Self

Imagine what it would be like if your self-image, your presented-image, and God’s-image all described the same person. You would act the same way across all different areas of your life, according to God’s design for you. That’s self-acceptance.

Is self-acceptance clear to you? Are you amazed by God’s goodness that He created you to enjoy Him and enjoy who He made you to be? If not, what seems to be holding you back from the joy of authenticity?

Learn more about worship and joy.
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Last updated 2025/03/02

Why Rejection Means You Belong

Why Rejection Means You Belong

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Rejection can be extremely painful or even life-threatening. However, for the Christian, for the child of God, rejection is an attack without merit. It doesn’t feel like it at the time, but rejection can be good. Would you rather be accepted by God or by Satan? Would you rather be rejected by God or by Satan?

Rejection is Related to Belonging

If you’re excluded from one group, you automatically belong to another.

If someone hates you, then someone else loves you.

If one person forgets you, you’re remembered by another.

If someone goes out of their way to reject you, that means you’re significant.

How can these statements be true? Belonging is conserved. No one can “unbelong” themselves from everyone everywhere. All believers have a built-in community. We have an identity made in God’s image meaning we’re somebody even when we feel like a nobody.

Rejection can be Temporary, Bad, or Good

Rejection is not always bad. Understanding its different types will help you focus on the good.

Temporary

When you reject yourself, you deceive yourself. When others reject you and you agree with it, you are likewise deceived. This is temporary rejection (God accepts you, man rejects you, and you reject you). It’s temporary because it comes from an incorrect belief. God will help you know the truth.

Bad

If you reject God and God rejects you, you have nothing. This is bad rejection (God rejects you, man might reject you, and you reject you). It’s bad because there is nothing worse in life than being rejected by God. God fully accepts His spiritual children, so this only applies to non-believers.

Good

If you’re rejected by the people who reject God, then you belong with God. When you’re enemy rejects you, you only gain. This is good rejection (God accepts you, man rejects you, but you accept you). It’s good because it solidifies that you truly belong to God.

The Lord is on my side; I will not fear.
What can man do to me?

The Lord is on my side as my helper;
I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.

It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in man.

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.

Psalm 118:6-8, 22 ESV

Jesus, the cornerstone, had much to say about belonging and rejection.

The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.

Luke 10:16 ESV

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

Luke 11:23 ESV

For the one who is not against us is for us.

Mark 9:40 ESV

Turn Your Rejection Into Belonging

Those who do not know who they truly are in God’s eyes are vulnerable to rejection from the world. We are born with the desperate need for acceptance. Without any connection or guidance from God, we will believe whatever we experience. The less you know yourself, the more rejection stings because you need others to help you learn how to accept yourself.

Think about the worst rejection you’ve ever had to face. Perhaps you craved the attention of so-and-so, but they poured contempt on you. Or you trusted so-and-so and they betrayed you. That’s the worst feeling ever.

What happens when you’re rejected? You just figured out where you don’t belong, which means you also found where you belong. For example:

  • If someone tells you he no longer wants to date you because you’re too quiet, then you belong with people who appreciate you being soft-spoken.
  • If someone excludes you because you are “too competitive”, then you belong with people who value being ambitious.
  • If someone persecutes you because of your unwavering faith in Jesus, then you belong with people who know and value the true God.

Review times of rejection and allow these experiences to strengthen (instead of weaken) the sense of who you are.

Learn more about love, suffering, and rejection.
Last updated 2025/02/09

God Will Deliver You From Failure

God Will Deliver You From Failure

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Failure would be a death sentence if it were not for God’s mercy. Many people struggle with believing that their failure leaves a fatal mark that limits their potential. If you think you’ve failed, you might believe something like:

  • I’ll always mess up God’s plans.
  • There’s no hope for me now.
  • I’ll wear this scar for the rest of my life.
  • That was my last chance.
  • God will never forgive me.
  • My best will never be good enough.
  • God is going to send me to hell.
  • I’ll never recover from this.
  • There’s no use trying again.

For Christians to believe any of these statements, they must be deceived. Every one of them has something false about it. What Jesus has done for believers removes the permanence of these statements and breathes hope into the hopeless, life into the lifeless.

Failure From the World’s Perspective

A worldly definition of failure distorts God by emphasizing two extreme responses. People are forever condemned or always excused without consequence. These miss God’s heart because they throw out His mercy or justice.

Without God’s mercy, we would all be perpetually caught in shame. The unbearable feelings of self-condemnation and self-loathing weigh heavily without any way of escape. People attempt to cope by utilizing perfectionism or apathy to avoid the feelings of falling short.

Without God’s justice, we can become lulled into a false sense of security. The prideful presumption that there will never be a reckoning for our attitudes and choices might soothe the conscience today but does nothing to prevent the condemnation tomorrow. People attempt to cope by utilizing relativism to discount the seriousness of God’s absolute standards.

    Sin is probably the best definition of failure. It completely misses what God wants for us. Without God, we are defective because of sin. However, God, because of His love, has stripped sin of its power and permanent consequences. So it does not have a significant lasting effect for believers.

    Failure From God’s Perspective

    Let’s reconsider the definition of failure, but include God this time. A worst-case definition of failure considers it to be a temporary setback. That’s because God works for our ultimate good. We are on the same side.

    Failure implies finality. But because God is an eternal being, endings do not exist for Him. Any moment in time is not the final word on your situation.

    Failure implies hopelessness. But God is an endless supply of hope. Nothing can defeat God. Nothing can defeat God’s plans. Nothing can defeat God’s people.

    Failure implies permanent loss. But God restores and heals, often while we are yet in this life. That’s possible because knowing Him means knowing boundless hope.

    Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

    Lamentations 3:21-23

    We can always learn from our experiences, even if they seem like abysmal failures. God is ready to give us another chance. We can start again in a stronger position.

    I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.

    Psalm 34:4-7 NIV

    So you can see that you will have trouble, but God will deliver you. He will deliver you from evil. He looks beyond failure to your eternal potential in Jesus Christ. For other verses that support God’s grace and hope, see Isaiah 40:31, Romans 5:5, Psalm 33:18, and Jeremiah 29:11.

    May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

    Romans 15:13 NIV

    Learn more about Shame.
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    Last updated 2025/02/02

    escape a chained reality

    Find God’s Beautiful Reality

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    How much of your life do you spend in reality? How much do you spend in a fantasy world whether that is of your making or another’s creative fiction?

    Taking a break from reality is healthy up to a point. But what starts as innocent can become harmful. Taking a break can eventually become escaping reality. Then what if you reach the point where you begin to prefer to escape more than you like to be present? You could then become chained (addicted) to a false reality that you find difficult to escape.

    Don’t Deny Reality

    We are only aware of a fraction of who we are at any given time. Sometimes this denial of who we are is normal and healthy. But at other times, we become stuck denying important information.

    If you’re in denial, you could be:

    1. Believing you are better than you are (you are pridefully protecting your ego).
    2. Believing you are worse than you are (you are making a negative experience more important than it is).

    Try to become more aware right now. Think through the past couple of weeks. What has been the focus of your thoughts? Is there anything resting just below the surface? What are you half-aware of? What could be buried deep? What is nagging at you in the back of your mind, but you haven’t admitted or verbalized it?

    Denying the truth is usually not good. But you must escape what you can’t fully handle in the moment. On the other hand, denying something false is usually good. God wants us to die to (deny) sin and be alive to Him.

    So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

    Romans 6:11 ESV

    Focus on God’s Reality

    Is there such a place as heaven on earth? How hard should Christians be trying to manufacture a utopia?

    We can make the effort to embrace the reality of God’s truth. But this includes the truth that this life, in its present form, is passing away (1 Corinthians 7:31). We can make our lives somewhat better, but we might lose everything if we focus more on present reality over future reality. What is coming next is far greater than what we have today. Jesus said if we focus on keeping our (present) life we might lose our (future) life, but if we focus away from our present life, we will keep our future life (Matthew 16:25).

    For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.

    Philippians 1:21-24

    The only true reality is the one God says is real. You might lean into other less-than-true realities when the pain is too much and you think you have no other options. But as soon as you’re ready, you should run toward God and His reality.

    In what ways are you in denial? Consider how aware you are of your emotions and memories. Put together these determine the worldview you carry around in your heart. Are you avoiding these significant experience by being stuck in a rut of unchanging routine? Ask God for the strength to endure the harshness of reality, but also for the spiritual insight to behold the beauty of His reality.

    God is merciful; He allows and even provides for a healthy escape. He provides moments that transcend the difficulties of life (see 1 Corinthians 10:13). When God provides the opportunity for you to enjoy life, be sure to take full advantage.

    Learn more about identity and reality.
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    Last updated 2024/11/24

    Remember Your Past For A Healthy Present

    Remember Your Past For A Healthy Present

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    How does remembering your past help you today? Think of re-membering as bringing scattered parts of your life together. It’s like gathering the parts of a jigsaw puzzle and assembling them where they belong.

    God wants you to see the whole picture of who you are. Have you ever worked on a puzzle only to get to the end and realize some pieces are missing? It’s frustrating because it feels so incomplete.

    I’m fascinated by my past. I’m not thinking of historical facts. I mean my psychological and emotional journey. Memories are important because they are the key to setting a person free from being trapped in the past.

    You can’t change what has happened to you but you can change its meaning. You decided how much a particular memory has the power to define who you are. They answer the question: How did I get to where I am today?

    How you first experience something has long-lasting implications. Your journey is, in many ways, a series of first-time experiences. To put the pieces of your life together, you must revisit your first-time experiences to create follow-on experiences. Healing can be both strengthening the positive memories and weakening the negative ones.

    Questions to Help You Remember

    Your relationship with your childhood memories can tell you a lot about yourself. Here are some questions you can use to explore your emotional health:

    • How do you feel about your childhood?
    • Do you feel like you are still a child?
    • Do you feel like you are stuck in your childhood?
    • Do you feel extremely distant from childhood, almost like it was another lifetime?
    • Does childhood feel real to you or more like a fantasy?
    • Does childhood seem unimportant or highly relevant to you?
    • Do you remember a lot or a little?
    • How much was childhood the same or different every day?
    • What positive memories come to mind?
    • What negative memories come to mind?

    Did you skim through these questions or pause on each one and give a real, in-depth answer? Are you willing to embrace your childhood or do you think you’d be happier if you never thought about it again?

    Even if you considered only one of the questions, you’ve got a taste of what it’s like to move toward emotional health. You dipped your toe in the water. If you considered more than one, you might feel overwhelmed as you swim in a pool of emotional memories.

    As I said, memories are fascinating. They aren’t part of who you are. Yet, in another way, they are part of you. You’re not five years old anymore. But you might feel five years old sometimes.

    Remember the Past, Compare it with the Present, and Plan the Future

    Here are a few more questions for you to consider: In what ways do you feel the same, today, as you did when you were a young child? In what ways are you the same? In what ways are you different?

    Life can lead you away from being in touch with who you are. The pressures, demands, and trauma open a chasm between your performance and who you are. It’s possible to become so familiar with present-day performance (life responsibilities) that you forget what it’s like to enjoy life on your terms.

    Here are three more questions that should help you “pull yourself together.” What day would you most like to relive? What makes life worth living today? Now, what new day do you imagine you would like to live in the near future?

    In answering all these questions, look for two things. First, look for any infections: emotional wounds that haven’t fully healed. Second, look for peak experiences: emotional highs that give you energy.

    If you’d like more practice at developing follow-on experiences, then you should try a book from my Journal Your Way series.

    More about the benefits of exploring your past.
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    Last updated 2022/12/11

    Is Love A Choice

    Is Love a Choice?

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    God loves you. But what does this mean? God is love (1 John 4:16). So, God has to love. He can’t not love. Does He love out of obligation? Is His love involuntary?

    We know God cares enough to die for us (John 3:16). He paid the price to redeem us. He is patient with us. He did what He had to do to keep us alive (spiritually).

    To say love is a choice is to say that it is objective. You and I can show love despite how we feel about another person. If we only loved when we felt like it, our actions would only be motivated by how others treat us. But here I am talking about human love which can be fickle.

    God’s agape is different. It always does right. It flows out of who God is. In that sense, it could be described as involuntary.

    Love makes it impossible to harm another, so love fulfills all that the law requires.

    Romans 13:10 TPT

    Much of life is starkly unpredictable, so it’s nice that God doesn’t change His mind about loving us.

    Is Love More Than a Choice?

    When love is a choice, it’s a rational, steady, and dependable love. But there is more to it than that. Love as only a choice is incomplete. Love includes compassion, affection, and favor. Agape is motivated by feeling. But keep in mind that God’s feelings are pure, undefiled by any sin.

    The Lord your God is in your midst,
        a mighty one who will save;
    he will rejoice over you with gladness;
        he will quiet you by his love;
    he will exult over you with loud singing.

    Zephaniah 3:17 ESV

    Subjective, irrational love is at the center of agape. God is not cold, loving only out of obligation. He is passionate and unrelenting. God’s favor, from the core of His being, drives Him to save us no matter the cost.

    God’s Love is Irrational

    God goes “all in” with His love toward us. This makes it an extravagant love. God’s loving favor doesn’t make sense, but that’s what makes it wonderful.

    God doesn’t only do the minimum decent thing to do. He doesn’t save us in compassion and then tell us to go on our way. He adopts us into His family (1 John 3:1; Romans 8:14-30).

    God’s family is forever. In Isaiah 49, God’s people felt like Yahweh had abandoned them.

    Yahweh responds, “But how could a loving mother forget her nursing child and not deeply love the one she bore? Even if a there is a mother who forgets her child, I could never, no never, forget you.

    Isaiah 49:15 TPT

    God’s affection for you is greater than any imperfect parent.

    If you, imperfect as you are, know how to lovingly take care of your children and give them what’s best, how much more ready is your heavenly Father to give wonderful gifts to those who ask him?”

    Matthew 7:11 TPT

    God has a strong bond of love with you. He withholds nothing good from you. What can you do today to believe, trust, and feel God’s affection for you?

    For God has proved his love by giving us his greatest treasure, the gift of his Son. And since God freely offered him up as the sacrifice for us all, he certainly won’t withhold from us anything else he has to give.

    Romans 8:32 TPT

    So, God loves you. He values you. He saves you. He rejoices because of you. He makes you a co-heir with Christ.

    I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

    Ephesians 3:17-19 NIV

    God has many good things in store for you, things too wonderful to fully comprehend today, but things that allow you to experience the fullness of hope as you are filled with God (Ephesians 3:20).

    Read more about God’s love.
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    Last updated 2023/04/30

    Christ’s Death Is Sufficient For Security Of Salvation

    Christ’s Death Is Sufficient For Security Of Salvation

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    The security of the people of God is of the first importance to every Christian. There is a life and death difference between the hearts of these two possible Gods:

    1. A God who saves you from sin and promises to keep you with Him for eternity.
    2. A God who saves you provisionally and reserves the right to change His mind and abandon you to hell for eternity.

    Which one do you believe is the true heart of the God who is love? Which one can you trust? Which one sounds amazingly God-like and which one sounds like a human father? Confusing the two, Christians might ask with deep concern:

    Although I have been born again and passed from death unto life, is my final salvation in heaven certain or are there uncertainties about it?

    Is there anything in the nature of the atonement, or the work of regeneration, or the character of God that may justly lead me to believe that, after the blood of Christ has cleansed me, I am permanently saved?

    Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

    John 5:24 ESV

    Security is Yours Because God Does Not Count Your Sin Against You

    Some might argue that security is left in the people’s hands instead of in God’s hands. It cannot be denied that we all sin and forget God and do wrong, some more and some less, and if God counts our sins against us, we would fall to be sure, but if God does not impute sin to us, we cannot fall. To “impute” means “to say that someone is responsible for something that has happened, especially something bad.”

    While we are responsible for our sins, we are also helpless to save ourselves. This is why we need the Savior Jesus Christ. We fully depend upon Him for our security. This is the essence of being a Christian: not trusting in self-effort in the least but trusting in God in every way.

    In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

    2 Corinthians 5:19 ESV

    God’s way of saving sinners is by not counting their sin against them.

    “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

    Hebrews 10:17 ESV

    When God says, “never remember” He means He will never bring up the matter again. God will never use your sins against you, but the devil certainly will. So, God has not imputed sin to those who are saved. He clears away their record, resulting in the joy of the believer.

    David also spoke of this when he described the happiness of those who are declared righteous without working for it: “Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight. Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin.”

    Romans 4:6-8 NLT

    Security is Yours if You Believe Christ’s Death is Your Only Hope

    David also taught that if God should count sin against us none of us would be able to stand (Psalm 130:3). How then can anyone be saved?

    The blessed man to whom God does not impute sin is the Christian, and if God does not impute sin to the Christian, he cannot “fall from grace.” In other words, the only way to fall from grace is to have your sins counted against you. Therefore, you have security in your salvation because Christ no longer counts your sins against you.

    Satisfaction must be rendered for every sin, and certainly, our obedience cannot satisfy a broken law. It requires death, and Christ’s death hushes the claims of law. Now, if all our sins were borne and satisfied by Jesus, the claims of law fully met by him in its very jots and tittles, then the ground of our hope is in what Jesus has done, and nothing else. Our deeds may be mixed with sin, and we often go astray, but these shall not overthrow us because the death of Christ is our only hope. This is the only principle upon which sinners can hope to be saved.

    Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

    Hebrews 9:22 ESV

    But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

    1 John 1:7 ESV

    So there never was nor ever will be a single sin forgiven on earth without that forgiveness being procured by the blood of Christ. And, you have been cleansed from all sin (including past, present, and future sin).

    From what has been said, we can conclude:

    • works are no part of the cause of our salvation;
    • God does not impute sin to his people;
    • the only ground of forgiveness is in the blood of Christ.

    All these being true, apostasy is impossible. You have a guarantee from Christ, as a genuine believer in His death and resurrection, that you will be with Him in heaven for all eternity. That is true security!

    Learn more about eternal security.
    This post started as the public domain works of J. H. Oliphant. While substantially the same in many ways, I modernized the language and added my thoughts to provide greater clarity for my readers.
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    Loneliness Is Deceptive

    Loneliness Is Deceptive

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    What is the opposite of loneliness? It’s not necessarily being around other people or enjoying others’ company. It’s being content with who you are. It’s hard to be lonely when you are at peace with yourself.

    Loneliness can be debilitating and result from the self-fulfilling prophecy of believing “I do not belong.” If left unchecked, it can develop into a disease. A disease becomes progressively worse until a cure is found. People who lack sufficient relationships will become emotionally unstable over time. This is how loneliness can become a deception–a belief that one is stuck in a trap and no escape is possible.

    The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.

    Mark Twain

    While overcoming loneliness does involve other people, it’s not physical proximity to others that irradicates the disease. It’s the genuine, life-giving connection with God, others, and self in healthy balance.

    Loneliness is Optional

    Loneliness is real, but it’s not intractable. You can be alone and not lonely. Being comfortable with yourself means you have taken the antidote of internalized love. A Christian is never truly alone. Even though God is not usually physically felt, He is always present. You can be not alone but still feel alone if you become numb to others. You can have food but still feel hungry if you have problems digesting.

    You can be not alone and not lonely. This is possible in a couple of ways. One, if you have internalized enough love, you have it stored up. You can survive in nutrient-deficient environments because you are healthy. Previous positive interactions keep you going even during a relational drought. Two, you could be with people that feed you relationally. When your genuine emotional needs are being met, it’s impossible to feel alone.

    Loneliness is not Caused by People

    You can be not alone and lonely. This demonstrates that other people do not automatically make loneliness go away. Healthy relationships makes a difference when they meet emotional needs. They are mean to be a conduit for emotional needs, not an end in themselves. Unhealthy (or unhelpful) relationships create emotional scars (or perpetuate neediness). Sometimes two needy people do more harm than good. Moderately needy people might bicker but still live to fight again another day. Desperately needy people can end up tearing each other apart.

    For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

    Galatians 5:14-15 ESV

    If your relationship is a place of doing more harm than good, it doesn’t mean it’s time to give up on the relationship. It just means you temporarily need help from outside the relationship. After you have internalized enough love, your relationship can thrive.

    You can be alone and lonely. If you find yourself here, it’s time to put yourself in a (relatively healthy) community. There are no magic cures but neither is there a better alternative. Not everyone will be a good match for your needs but one good relationship is enough to move toward health. Even so, limiting yourself to one person will not be effective. No one person can give you everything you need.

    God designed us to ultimately receive what we need from Him. But He frequently uses other people to communicate His love. If you are lonely (whether alone or not alone), your needs are not being met. It’s time to do something different until your needs are being met. Cry out to God. Tell Him what you need. Tell at least one other person what you need.

    Learn more about fulfillment.
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    Overcome Resistance To Value Your Identity

    Overcome Resistance To Value Your Identity

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    To live is to encounter resistance to all that is good. Given the curse the world will naturally degrade as long as evil is in control. Even the sin in us resists God’s goodness. But our suffering does not need to lead us to despair. God tells us to hope not in this world but in Him.

    We know that God is ultimately in control even though it appears like evil has control. Bad things happen. God offers His truth to us. Are you winning or losing the struggle between these two?

    If I offered you a new, crisp one-hundred dollar bill, would you accept it? What if I first crumpled it up and submerged it into a concoction of oil, mud, and blood? The bill might be tattered and dirty, but it’s still worth the same amount.

    The same is true for you. You have an enemy who wants to drag you through the mud. He wants you to forget who you are. Or, better yet, he’d like you to never figure out or accept who you are. You are valuable even though you have some scars and dirt.

    Resistance is not Futile

    You have a force working against you as you discover who you are. As you learn who God made you to be, the evil one will work to make sure you don’t believe or can’t accept who you are. He’ll try to get you to think you’re worth less (worthless).

    Resistance is not futile (see Hebrews 12:4 and James 4:7). You can submit to God and resist the devil’s schemes. Fortunately for you and me, this strategy of the enemy will backfire eventually, like all of his strategies. How? Because whatever the evil one plans for discomfort and destruction, God can turn it around and use it for good. Even so, it’s important to keep expectations adjusted appropriately. The ending is awesome, but we’ll still experience some darkness, discomfort, and even some deterioration along the way.

    Understanding the truth is difficult when life isn’t working out in your favor. In the end, though, the enemy can only redecorate your life. He can’t destroy it. What the enemy can touch is superficial.

    Joseph is a great example of patience during suffering. His brothers betrayed him, and he still felt compassion for them at the end of his life. He saw his life events, the good and the bad, with a positive view of God.

    As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

    Genesis 50:20 ESV

    Growing Stronger Requires Befriending Resistance

    Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

    1 Peter 4:12-13 ESV

    If you want to grow stronger, you must actively face some resistance. All else equal, in light gravity, you lose muscle and bone strength. In heavy gravity, you can gain strength if you resist.

    You can’t live without hope but equally true is: you can’t live without exercising your body and mind. When who you are is under attack, you must resist what is false. During the process of refuting what isn’t true, you’ll learn what is true about you.

    Therefore, whenever you’re feeling discouraged by life, remind yourself, “I have value no matter what I look like or feel like on the outside. This body I have today is temporary. My spirit is eternal. God will make me a new body in the next life.” And, bonus! God has already started the cleanup process, so you can experience some comfort in this life.

    Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

    2 Corinthians 1:3-5 ESV

    Read through or listen to Mandisa’s songs, Stronger and Overcomer.
    Learn more about overcoming resistance.
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    Last updated 2024/01/14

    Forever A Child Of God

    Forever A Child Of God

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    You are a child no matter how old you are. How is this possible? It’s not because you have parents. It’s because you are a child of God if you are a born-again believer. As Creator, God is the adult. As creatures, we are His children. Adults and children have different roles and responsibilities.

    A Child of God is Forever Young

    God is eternal. He lives outside of time. Relative to God’s “age” (essentially infinite) the oldest person alive is still like a child. This is true both in terms of physical age, but also in terms of knowledge and understanding.

    What image comes to mind when you picture youth?

    • Someone who is growing quickly.
    • Someone who is learning constantly.
    • Someone who is expending energy.
    • Someone who is failing frequently.
    • Someone who prioritizes growth before productivity.

    How much does your life look youthful? Young people usually do not concern themselves with being responsible for others. This can be good and bad. It’s good to invest in spiritual growth. But spiritual growth and hard work do not have to be mutually exclusive. Maybe we should prioritize growth like Mary but also contribute like Martha.

    As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me! “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

    Luke 10:38-42 NIV

    A Child of God is Forever Dependent

    As Creator, God is the source of everything good. As creatures, we need Him. The difference between human children and adults is a good metaphor for the difference between us and God.

    What image comes to mind when you picture adults?

    • Someone independent who accepts responsibility for self and potentially others.
    • Someone who can invest in the growth of others.
    • Someone who makes fewer mistakes because of lessons learned.
    • Someone who is stable and content at least some of the time.
    • Someone who balances growth and productivity.

    Even with all of these benefits of being an adult, every Christian is still a child of God. In relation to God, Christians will be a blend of youth and adult. Everyone will always have more they can learn or experience. Everyone is permanently dependent upon God. Even well into eternity, we will only exist because God exists. But because we exist in the image of God, we will also be productive creators.

    A Child of God is Forever Secure

    God doesn’t need us but we will always need Him. An evil person would exploit this power differential for his gain. Because God lacks nothing, He has no reason to manipulate others in an attempt to extract resources from them. Instead, God is love, so His motive is love. He loves us enough that He died for us. He didn’t give up on us. He cares. He won’t give up on us.

    When God won’t give up on us, that’s called security. God will discipline us to the very end to ensure we are better at being like Him.

    And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

    Phillipians 1:6 NLT

    Let God be God: responsible, parent, all-powerful, sustaining, love. This allows you to be you: dependent, seeking, learning, secure, child of God.

    Learn more about security in God.
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    Overcome When You Feel Like Giving Up

    Overcome When You Feel Like Giving Up

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    Life has a way of wearing you down so much that you stop trusting God. What are some reasons you feel like giving up? Do they include any of the following?

    • Have you experienced too many failures or rejections?
    • Do you feel worth less than others?
    • Do you feel not needed or not wanted?
    • Do you feel tired, lost, or confused?
    • Does your existence seem pointless?

    You might not think of yourself as depressed, but if you answered yes to any of those questions, then you are experiencing some form of discouragement. When your burden becomes too great, you’ll naturally consider giving up. Feeling like you want to give up should throw a red flag for you.

    Feeling Like Giving Up Comes From a Desire to be Self-Sufficient

    Unfortunately, you will encounter discouraging people and circumstances. Sometimes you can make better choices to prevent bad things from happening. Other times, there isn’t anything you could have done differently. Either way, when you continue to suffer long after a difficult experience, there’s a reason.

    What keeps you weighed down and prevents you from moving forward? Do any of these sound like you?

    • You’re trying to do it all yourself.
    • You believe God doesn’t care or He is somehow against you.
    • You think being humble means you should have low self-worth.
    • You think you’ve committed the unpardonable sin and God is condemning you to hell.
    • You stopped trusting God because of a tragedy.

    God says there is a different way than giving up.

    Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Then come to me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis. Simply join your life with mine. Learn my ways and you’ll discover that I’m gentle, humble, easy to please. You will find refreshment and rest in me.

    Matthew 11:28-29 TPT

    Feeling Like Giving Up Comes From a Faulty Foundation

    It’s possible to have God in your life but still feel like giving up. Unfortunately, you can become committed to a life strategy that doesn’t work. If so, it’s either based on a lie or it’s not the right approach for you. A faulty strategy is based on lies.

    “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

    Matthew 7:24-27 ESV

    Rebuild Your Foundation When You Feel Like Giving Up

    What is your life based on? Do you know why you are doing what you’re doing? Do you have at least one primary, life-giving motivation? If you don’t, you’ll find no gas in your tank to draw on when the going gets tough. A life founded on the rock looks like the following:

    • You have a clear purpose and act on it consistently.
    • You ask God to help you advance His kingdom.
    • You ask God to purify your motives.
    • You trust God to multiply your efforts.
    • You surrender the outcome to God.

    You can overcome when you feel like giving up when you understand God is responsible for the results (the fruit). God causes all things to grow. You only need to be faithful to the resources God has given you. Only God has the power to make good things happen, but your contribution is important.

    I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.

    1 Corinthians 3:6-9 NIV

    It’s natural (in our sin) to want to be able to control the outcomes in life, but only God is in control. Instead of giving up on God, give up your desire to be self-sufficient. If you can see yourself as partnering with God, then you’ll be more willing to let God help you align your desires to His desires.

    Don’t give up. Don’t lose sight of who God is and who He made you to be. God loves you and has a plan for your life. You can find your purpose, live your purpose, and enjoy your life.

    Learn more about why you should never give up.
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    Last Updated 2023/12/24

    Identity's Mystery Uncovered

    Identity’s Mystery Uncovered

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    Identity is both a mystery and a guide. Only God knows everything about us. We speak, feel, and act from the core of who we are, but only God completely knows our hearts. And yet, the longer we live, the more we come to understand who we are.

    Identity is Like a Seed

    If you plant an apple seed, can it grow into a pear tree? Of course not! The identity of the seed is the same as the tree. Identity is “preprogrammed” by God. When we are conceived, a seed is planted and it will grow into the person God plans for us to be.

    People must go through a second conception and birth to overcome the spiritual death present from the first birth. The first birth reveals only a shadow of true life. The first seed contains complete plans but lacks spiritual life. The second seed recreates people with spiritual vitality so that they can connect with God.

    A seed looks nothing like what it will grow into. Only after it has matured can we see it for what it is. Unfortunately because of sin and creation’s curse, what is visible is distorted.

    When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

    1 Corinthians 13:11-12 ESV

    Identity Is What You Cannot Lose

    Imagine you’re in the worst sandstorm of all time. The wind uses the sand to scrub away at you. The intensity of the blast separates little pieces of you and the wind carries them into the distance.

    If this were a real sandstorm, your body couldn’t withstand it. But I’m talking about a cleansing from who you aren’t. After such a thorough cleansing, what is left of you?

    Identity is what you can’t ever lose. Whatever is left is the true you. What got carried away wasn’t ever really a part of the true you. Maybe through life experiences, you feel as though you’ve lost yourself. Don’t worry. You are still there. God knows exactly who you are.

    These four dictionary definitions (compiled from yourdictionary.com and dictionary.com) capture the essence of identity. Identity is:

    1. “Who you are.”
    2. “The set of characteristics by which you are definitively recognizable.” This definition clarifies that we can use identity to distinguish you from others.
    3. “Your unique characteristics held by no other person.” This definition clarifies that having an identity means you have something that no one else will ever have.
    4. “What remains the same, constant, persisting over time, under varying circumstances.” This definition provides the insight that identity must be permanently yours, or else it isn’t part of you.

    Take a moment and think about what can be taken from you or what you can lose. What is left? I’m not talking about the things God has promised are yours. If you’re a Christian, you have eternal life and an eternal relationship with God and others. Your identity is who you are. The “who that is you” will always be forever. Remember this when you feel like life is ripping you apart.

    And I will put this third into the fire,
    and refine them as one refines silver,
    and test them as gold is tested.
    They will call upon my name,
    and I will answer them.
    I will say, ‘They are my people’;
    and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’”

    —Zechariah 13:9

    God is helping you become the purest and truest version of who you are. Listen to the Refiner’s Fire worship song. Ask God to help you know and experience your true identity.

    Learn more about the mystery of identity.
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    Last updated 2023/12/17

    Faith Has Nothing To Do With Circumstances

    Faith Has Nothing to Do With Circumstances

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    Faith is first of all unwavering trust in a person: Jesus Christ. True faith means that trust exists and remains whether or not what you’ve asked for is fulfilled. This kind of faith comes only from your relationship with Jesus, made possible by the Holy Spirit.

    Faith and Doubt can Coexist

    Your faith doesn’t have to be perfect. Its strength doesn’t need to be at 100% for it to be effective. You can struggle with doubt as a believer. Your struggle is also an opportunity to strengthen your convictions. God wants us to trust the person (Jesus) first, not a specific outcome. This is important because we can’t predict God’s will in many of life’s details.

    Having faith in God when He answers your prayers isn’t enough. You need faith in God even when He doesn’t answer your prayers the way you expect Him to. Of course, whenever you ask for wisdom, forgiveness, or other things God is eager to give to you, then you must believe and not doubt:

    …if any of you lack wisdom, you should pray to God, who will give it to you; because God gives generously and graciously to all. But when you pray, you must believe and not doubt at all. Whoever doubts is like a wave in the sea that is driven and blown about by the wind. If you are like that, unable to make up your mind and undecided in all you do, you must not think that you will receive anything from the Lord.

    James 1:5-8 GNT

    What is it that you must believe? The work of God is to believe in Jesus (John 6:29). To call yourself a believer, you must know who Jesus is. You must believe He is exactly who He says He is. God is all-powerful. God is in complete control. God is wise. God is good.

    Have Faith in What God Wills

    If you want to improve your faith, consider asking God for the wisdom to know the difference between a prayer He will always answer with yes and others which are maybe or no. Wisdom, patience, maturity, the ability to love… God always grants these. Praying for your basic needs is likely to result in a yes. For example, you could pray that God would meet your transportation needs (likely) or you could pray for an extravagant car (less likely, but depends on why you’re asking). How this works depends on your heart–how you prioritize your life.

    God answers prayers according to His sovereign plan, but He also answers them in the context of His relationship with you. Your biological father will give you good gifts if he knows and cares about you. Your heavenly father will also give you gifts appropriate to your spiritual maturity, your connection with Him, and His purposes (Matthew 7:11).

    God, being good, gives good gifts. Therefore, there is never a reason to give up your faith. Faith that God is real and that He rewards those who seek Him is essential (Hebrews 11:6). Don’t give up on God!

    Perhaps the times when you doubt God are the times when you are experiencing a deep sense of betrayal. God hasn’t betrayed you, but it can certainly feel that way. Even then, God would have you trust Him and continue to believe He is good and has something good in store for you.

    Then you can say like Paul:

    I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful.

    2 Timothy 4:7 NLT

    How is your faith? It can be unwavering only because God is unwavering. God has a plan for your life. As a believer, your life always has a happy ending.

    Learn more about the quality, not quantity of faith.
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    Last updated 2023/11/19

    Personality Reveals The Mystery Of Identity

    Personality Reveals The Mystery Of Identity

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    Personality provides hints and clues into identity. God knows everything, so He knows us completely. But for us, life is an indefinite discovery process to understand the depths of who we are as well as who God is.

    A person’s identity is internal. As you get to know someone, you see the outward expression of her identity. Interacting with others reveals personality over time.

    People are living beings, so they are continuously changing. Thus, you can never exhaustively know someone. However, this doesn’t mean that a person can become anything she wants to be. Even though she is growing, there is direction to the growth; there is a definite destination.

    As you learn who you are, you can be confident in what you find, with some exceptions like maturity and mood.

    Personality is Different than Maturity

    Each person is diverse and complicated but also knowable. People will respond differently to different stimuli. So while every day can be different, over time, patterns will emerge. The younger people are, the more they are in an experimental phase of life. Just because you observe someone acting outgoing one day, doesn’t mean that is normal for her. Maybe for the next nine days, she will be more withdrawn. It is the long-term pattern that matters.

    If you flip a penny one time and it lands on tails, you would be wrong to conclude that the penny is biased to land on tails. You must flip it a significantly large number of times to determine its character (its bias or outcome that is consistently predictable).

    Likewise, it is essential to make observations over a significantly large time when determining a person’s character. Personality can change over time, but that is only because of the maturation process, not because personality is fluid. New experiences can encourage unexpressed parts of personality to emerge, but as with coin flipping, more experiences will result in a person’s awareness of her personality becoming more certain, not less certain.

    Personality is Different than Mood

    If you are sad one day, that doesn’t define your personality. Mood is highly correlated to circumstances, as it should be. Emotions indicate what is going on inside, but this is strictly based on what circumstances are prevailing.

    There is no such thing as an “anxious personality.” God didn’t design anyone to be fearful. God wants everyone to experience peace. Some people might be more pessimistic or cautious, but that is different than fear.

    Some people might be more pensive (contemplative) but that’s different than depressed. Words like anxiety or depression indicate that something is broken. We know that in heaven, nothing will be broken. So, despair or horror is only possible when God is absent. Hopelessness is negative. But sadness can exist in the context of hope. If your favorite person dies, and you know she has a relationship with God, you can know you will see her again someday.

    Anything that is based on sin, the curse, or evil is not a part of personality. It is temporary. Don’t consider your personality to be associated with circumstances. Negative circumstances will eventually improve (if only in the next life for believers – see Romans 8). But all the good things about who you are is constant.

    Personality Grows Out of Identity

    Identity is like a seed that is planted. Personality is like the root system, stem, branches, flowers, or fruit that grows from the seed. The seed is planted and it grows into what God programmed into the seed. The seed cannot self-determine to grow in ways it was not designed.

    Likewise, God plants us and we grow into exactly who He intends. It is our limited experiences of life that make life interesting. God may know everything, but we don’t. I suspect that God delights in relating to creation because He is love. He can love us and lead us into truth. Meanwhile, we can enjoy the journey of discovering who He made us to be.

    Learn more about identity.
    Image by Huynh Jason from Pixabay
    Inspiration for this article came, in part, from Why You Are More Than Your Personality

    Election To Eternal Life Is Unconditional

    Election To Eternal Life Is Unconditional

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    Who ultimately has the power to decide what happens in life? God is the one in control. Of everything.

    The Bible teaches that a person’s election into salvation is unconditional. Unconditional means that there is no merit or mechanism within a person that tips God’s favor his or her way. People can’t earn their way to heaven. People can’t enter heaven unless God enables and allows them to enter. God’s vote in the election process is what counts.

    For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up.

    John 6:44 NLT

    God Initiates and Completes the Election Process

    God initiates salvation before anyone is born. God knows the people He creates. He calls and predestines them, knowing all the days of their lives (Psalm 139:16). In Romans 8:28-30 Paul lays out an unbreakable chain of events:

    And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.

    Romans 8:28-30 NLT

    The golden chain of salvation is the five unbreakable links between foreknow, predestine, call, justify, and glorify. Foreknowing always leads to predestination. Predestination always leads to calling. Calling always leads to justification. Justification always leads to glorification. Once God starts the process, He will complete it by glorifying the person in heaven.

    God Foreknows the People He Chooses for Election

    Foreknowledge is different than foreknowing. Foreknowledge is about factual information. Foreknowing is the intimate knowing of a person. This means that God is capable of much more than simply knowing who will choose Him in the future. Foreknowledge alone reduces election to merely a confirmation of a person’s choice. The more personal foreknowing means the following are true:

    • God intimately knows the people He elects.
    • God creates people for different purposes (some for noble and some for ignoble as in Romans 9:14-16).
    • God is in control of the entire creative process. He knows what He is doing when He creates each person.
    • God has the first and final decision as to who will be elected to eternal life.

    All of this means that the state of a person at creation is not random. It’s not like God created 10 billion people with random characteristics, then looked into the future to see which ones would choose Him, and then predestined those particular ones. No. Instead, He intentionally loves the person and predestines him or her at the time of creation, knowing they will be in heaven.

    This makes sense given that God is in control of everything. Shouldn’t the God of the universe have the final say in who will be with Him for eternity? God favors people and then creates them. Everyone God wants to be in heaven will be there. No one that God doesn’t want to be there will be there.

    This might sound unfair, but how it sounds doesn’t make any difference because God is creator and is in control (He is sovereign). Election, therefore, is not a conditional process that puts the power of choosing within the person. Election is unconditional because the power to choose is God’s. No one deserves to be elected to heaven. It is only God’s mercy and love that elects some but not others.

    If life is predetermined, how is it worth living? God knows everything but we don’t. We don’t know what is going to happen. We don’t know the particular people God will call. God invites us to participate in sharing His Good News. God’s ways, His capacity to reason, are higher than ours. He can manage knowing everything while relating to us who know very little. Yes, He has the advantage.

    It’s because of our sinful nature that we want to rebel against an ultimate authority that can decide the fate of all living creatures (see Genesis 3 and Ecclesiastes 6:10 NLT version). Left to ourselves, we’d like to be in control of our destiny (not a good thing). But as Christians, we know that God being in control is not only reality, it is far superior. We can let God be God. We can be thankful He loves and cares for us.

    Learn more about election in 40 Questions About Salvation
    Learn more about the golden chain of salvation
    Learn more about resting in God’s favor
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    Your Struggle Is Related To Childhood

    Your Struggle Is Related to Childhood

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    Struggles come in all shapes and sizes. You can struggle physically, mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually. Physical struggles are related to health and endurance. Mental struggles are about grasping concepts and reality. Emotional struggles are a focus on the intensity of pain caused by the negatives of life (loss resulting from sin). Spiritual struggles involve the ability to discern the truth from falsehood.

    All struggles are likely related to childhood events because people are most vulnerable then. Even though we struggle, spiritual rebirth allows believers to love God will all aspects of their being.

    And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”

    Matthew 22:37-38 ESV

    Optical Illusions Are a Perceptional Struggle

    Optical illusions are fun. They work because of assumptions about reality. To some degree, you will perceive what you want to perceive. Sometimes that aligns with reality and sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, after you see past the illusion, it’s difficult to be tricked again.

    Your consciousness is similar to an optical illusion. You have meaningful events buried beneath the surface of awareness. The significant events are rich with life lessons and strong feelings. As you intentionally uncover the significance of your history, it becomes harder to ignore unless you are determined to avoid it.

    Becoming in touch with your uncomfortable memories promotes healing. This can seem counter-intuitive until you realize that to not be in touch with your history is to be in denial. What is distressing tends to stay buried unless you are determined to be healthy.

    Jesus Calls Those Who Struggle

    As you probably know, there is a tension between wanting everything just to be okay and admitting everything isn’t okay.

    Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.”

    Luke 5:31-32 NLT

    Many of your childhood struggles continue to play out in your everyday interactions. You just don’t realize it unless you look intentionally. Without some prompting, it’s easy to leave pain buried. You might think you are better off leaving sleeping giants undisturbed.

    A decade or two isn’t enough time to fully resolve life’s challenges. Chances are, whatever you struggled with as a child, you still struggle with today. Ideally, you struggle with it to a lesser degree. But there’s no shame in noticing you continue to struggle. It is possible to both make significant progress and realize you are essentially the same person you were as a child.

    Feelings Reveal The Real Struggle

    Everyone has to overcome their fear of inadequacy if they want to grow. Don’t be surprised and discouraged when you experience some of the same feelings you had during your younger years. Instead, see this as a positive sign that you are strong enough to look clearly at how you are responding to life.

    How you respond reveals a lot about yourself that you need to know if you want to continue healing. This works for both positive and negative emotions.

    Positive emotions can tell you what you’ll naturally be drawn to. They can get you into a trap just as easily as negative ones if you’re not vigilant. For example, people who notice they feel great when they win might be tempted to gamble for a chance to win big.

    Negative emotions tell you what you want to avoid. They become a trap when they take center stage. For example, people who fear competition might become so consumed with failure, that they avoid trying.

    Spend time noticing what makes you exceptionally happy, sad, angry, or anxious. Then make connections with your earlier experiences. What themes do you see? Your consistency over time likely defines your personality.

    Learn more about exploring childhood to be healthy.
    The picture that goes with today’s post contains an optical illusion. I found it on the internet. Apparently, it was popular around 2014.

    Earnest Rest Reveals God's Favor

    Earnest Rest Reveals God’s Favor

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    Rest makes it possible to perform at your highest level. You probably do your best work when you are relaxed and “in the zone.” Have you experienced this kind of rest? Would you like to learn to enter into the rest God intends for you?

    Find Rest By Finding Your Sweet Spot

    God made you with an identity which is the place of optimal functioning. This sweet spot is where the least amount of effort still produces the maximum output. Hitting your sweet spot is an honorable goal. God intends for you to feel the pleasure of acting from the center of who you are. If you want to know God’s favor, first you must be free to be yourself.

    Sometimes the sweet spot is elusive because of sin and the curse. They cloud and distort who you are. Sometimes you have to do what you don’t particularly want to do. Overcoming the curse requires hard work. The goal isn’t to eliminate your effort, but instead to optimize your effort. You put in your effort while relying on God to carry what you were never meant to carry.

    Find Rest By Compartmentalizing Obligation

    Do you know what it feels like to pursue what you want instead of what you must (because of obligation or responsibility)? God created the sabbath so you can experience unpressured living at least one day out of seven. The lift you gain from one day of rest can carry into the other six days.

    Who are you when you’re under obligation? How do you fill your day to meet the demands of life? Don’t miss this: You’re probably not optimally in touch with your true identity while under obligation. That’s because obligation implies some amount of stress and that changes everything.

    Who are you when you’re not under any obligation? Then, how do you live? This is what you can accomplish during productive play. Restful living means entering into a natural high by functioning at the level of God’s highest purposes for you. This is true recreation — an effort that recovers more energy than it spends.

    Find Rest By Playing

    Fulfilling obligations is necessary. But playing is as important as working. What do you think of when you think of playing? Productive play does not involve low-functioning activities that allow passive living. Your brain can be fully engaged and relaxed during play.

    Whatever you do should have a purpose. Some activities can seem like they have no eternal significance, but if they rejuvenate you, they have value. For example, consider watching a movie. What value do you gain from it? Does it uplift or strengthen you? Does it help you to better understand life? Or does it drain you or lead you into sin?

    To play is to relax. Some people can’t stop working. Their play is only work in disguise. When you practice relaxing, it will help you when you are under the stress of responsibility. You’ll be able to work more efficiently when you are under stress.

    Restful living will be different for each person. What activities bring you more energy as you participate in them? In the movie, Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell says, “When I run, I feel His pleasure.” Even though he’s exerting himself completely he has entered God’s rest. He’s burdened with running, but not burdened with debilitating anxieties.

    When God’s power is available genuine play is possible. That’s because He does the heavy lifting. Jesus said:

    Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

    Matthew 11:28-30

    Have you ever felt God’s pleasure? You enter God’s rest and He is right there with you expressing His excitement for who you are. God is your cheerleader. Allow His cheers to propel you forward.

    Learn more about play.
    Image by skeeze from Pixabay
    Last Updated 2023/10/15

    A Correct Theology Is Life Changing

    A Correct Theology Is Life-Changing

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    Given that life can often be challenging, a robust theology is one of the easiest ways to save yourself from unnecessary heartache.

    Imagine going on a journey and coming to a fork in the road. Should you go left or right? The two paths might appear to go in the same basic direction, but over time they diverge. If you make a wrong choice early on in life, it can take years to backtrack and go the right way.

    If you read the Bible the wrong way, you can end up seeing only what you want to see or what you think it says, instead of what it actually says. The Bible is the only source of truth that describes the reality of creation. But, it is also authored by God so that only with the help of His Spirit, can we understand what it says.

    Correct Theology Requires Accurate Interpretation

    Developing a theology means conducting a review of the Bible’s main teachings about God and life.

    The Bible’s words of truth must be interpreted. The challenge with any written word is determining what the original author meant. Words are simply labels for concepts and meanings. What you call something matters very little. But the meaning we feel and understand in our hearts, our heads, or our spirits — that is everything. As you might see, this is why communication can be so prone to misunderstanding. Words can mean totally different ideas to different people.

    Each person has a distinct identity (or personality). Each person also has their own unique experiences. The combination of unique experiences and the interpretation of those experiences creates diversity. Diversity can increase the potential for rich experiences, but as it does, it can just as easily increase the potential for gross misunderstanding. When you are trying to communicate with others, pay attention to how your experiences shape your understanding. Be patient with the time it takes to synchronize your inner meanings with someone else’s perspectives.

    Correct Theology Leads To Confident Living

    A correct theology keeps your mind in sync with your creator. Confident living doesn’t mean perfect living without mistakes or difficulties. But it does mean peaceful living because God is in control. Knowing the truth and walking in it is confident living. God handles the errors. God makes the corrections as needed to keep us on the right path.

    The LORD directs the steps of the godly.
    He delights in every detail of their lives.
    Though they stumble, they will never fall,
    for the LORD holds them by the hand.

    Psalm 37:23-24 NLT

    How to Develop a Correct Theology

    Read the Bible and ask the Holy Spirit to help you interpret. If you go to the source, you will have the best opportunity to understand the truth. However, it’s also possible to be blinded by particularly negative life experiences. These experiences can inject false beliefs and motivations into our lives. They cloud the truth, making it difficult to see clearly.

    The Christian journey is not meant to be traveled alone. God gives us other people with various and diverse gifts of the Spirit to help the community of all believers to thrive. I believe it’s important to develop convictions about the major teaching of the Bible in areas like the following:

    • God’s sovereignty and man’s free will. My study of the Bible has led me to conclude that God’s sovereignty has greater significance than man’s free will. God, as creator, can change man so that man’s will is in line with God’s heart. But man, without God’s complete help, cannot overcome sin. Yes, man has free will, but only within the system of life that God has created. It is an illusion to think that man can have complete free will apart from God. God holds creation together by His power (Colossians 1:16-17).
    • Are believers eternally secure in their salvation, or can they lose it (and potentially gain it back again)? See my other posts for my views on why believers have eternal security, even though they must still persevere in their faith.
    • Does a non-believer use faith to believe in God? Or does God initiate regeneration, giving people the faith to believe? See 1 Peter 1:3-5 below which shows that “God caused us to be born again” and it is “by God’s power we are being guarded through faith for a salvation.”

    Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

    1 Peter 1:3-5 ESV

    I found 40 Questions About Salvation by Matthew Barrett to be instrumental in explaining the theology of the Bible with regard to salvation. When you study the Bible to develop correct theology, I guarantee it will be life-changing.

    Learn more about interpreting the Bible.
    Learn more about eternal security.
    Image by Albrecht Fietz from Pixabay

    Shame Is A Prison

    Shame Is A Prison

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    Shame might be a prison, but Christians are no longer prisoners. You have the freedom to leave the cell anytime. Past behavior can fuel guilt and shame only because of a poor understanding of what God has done for you.

    What you do does not define who you are. What you do is only one moment in time. What you do might be mean, evil, or hurtful. If we could never change, then what we do would offer a picture of who we are. We would bear the shame of our actions forever.

    Fortunately, because of a relationship with God, we can grow more loving. In this case, the hurt that Christians cause does not ultimately define who they are. God has shown us a better way and He is helping us have the heart that can love like He does.

    Shame Results When You Fail To Look To God For Definition

    Tenth Avenue North has a fantastic song, You Are More. You are more than what you do. That’s true because worth ultimately originates outside of creation altogether. Only God, as Creator, has the power to define what is worthy.

    Those who look to him are radiant;
        their faces are never covered with shame.

    Psalm 34:5 NIV

    If you only look within and find defects and sin you will experience shame. When you believe that doing defines who you are, you’ll be caught in hopelessness. I started my book, Confident Identity, with the following description:

    Shame is the deep-down sense that who you are is defective and worthless and therefore, you aren’t needed or wanted by anyone. Shame is a problem of epidemic proportions. All who struggle with it become isolated from the cause and the cure: relationship. Relationships have the potential to affirm or to reject who you are.

    Shame can be activated when someone has done something wrong to you or you’ve done something wrong. It lingers when you haven’t received forgiveness and acceptance. Abuse, getting what you don’t need, and neglect, not getting what you do need, aggravate your need for acceptance.

    Accepting God’s Acceptance Cancels Shame

    God accepted Mary and He accepts all His children no less.

    And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

    Luke 1:30 ESV

    He accepts you because of Christ’s sacrifice, no doubt. But Christ’s sacrifice was not given begrudgingly for a people that He believed to be worthless. He loves and saves because that’s who He is. But the people He sacrificed for have worth. His sacrifice proves exactly how valuable they are. He accepts you because of who you are – who He made you to be – not what you’ve done.

    Emotional health requires the ability to separate the results of wrongdoing (guilt and shame) from the benefits of unconditional love (peace and confidence).

    For all Christians, guilt and shame should be temporary and acceptance should be eternal. God allows you to reconsider what you’ve done and start with a clean slate. This means hope.

    Shame thrives without the hope of forgiveness and a new start. It is only possible when you feel trapped in a prison cell with no hope of escaping. Make a list right now of what is keeping you in prison. For every hopeless situation, God has a way out. Nothing is impossible with God. Elizabeth, Mary’s relative, conceived in her old age.

    And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

    Luke 1:36-38 ESV

    Tell God you’re ready to start over with a clean slate. Ask Him to show you the way out. Then tell Him to, “let it be to me.”

    Learn more about overcoming shame.
    Image by Jeff Jacobs from Pixabay

    The Wisdom Of Proverbs 18:4 Is Deep

    The Wisdom Of Proverbs 18:4 Is Deep

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    There’s no doubt that wisdom is priceless and the Bible is the source of all wisdom. A misunderstood Bible verse can cause a life of unnecessary confusion and suffering. The Bible teaches us who we are and who God is. Both are the foundations for understanding how life works. Errors in understanding will have serious consequences.

    Blessed is the one who finds wisdom and the one who obtains understanding.

    Proverbs 3:13 (God’s Word Translation)

    What happens if the Bible, the very source of truth, isn’t interpreted correctly? When you don’t understand a Bible verse, do you skip over it or do you stop and search for a way to better understand it? A wise person will prioritize gaining understanding. Difficult passages of the Bible make sense when you make an effort to understand them.

    What Exactly is Wisdom?

    Proverbs 18:4 defines wisdom as a “rushing stream.” But is that all it means?

    The words of the mouth are deep waters,
        but the fountain of wisdom is a rushing stream.

    NIV (Proverbs 18:4)

    What is this verse saying? Is it saying that words coming from a person are deep but wisdom is simple (shallow?) like a rushing stream? That doesn’t make sense to me, or it’s confusing at best. To me, it seems to be saying that a person’s thoughts are complicated but God’s truth is simple. While there is some truth to this, that’s not the full meaning behind this verse.

    As a new Christian, I read the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible. I like it because it translates many difficult passages into more understandable English. But, for Proverbs 18:4, the NIV leaves me scratching my head.

    In the post Are You Interpreting the Bible Correctly? I talked about how using multiple versions of the Bible can help you find a more accurate meaning. Let’s see how that helps.

    Wisdom is Understanding

    Since I became a Christian nearly 30 years ago, many new translations have been developed. This is good news because any one translation has its biases. In considering Proverbs 18:4, the NIV seems to lean more towards a word-for-word translation (like the ESV). It stays closer to the original wording but in this case, lacks readability.

    Words of wisdom
    are a stream
        that flows
        from a deep fountain.

    CEV (Proverbs 18:4)

    A person’s words can be a source of wisdom, deep as the ocean, fresh as a flowing stream.

    GNT (Proverbs 18:4)

    The CEV, GNT, and other translations omit the “but” and instead find harmony within the verse. The deep fountain and bubbling brook are one and the same. These translations clearly present a positive meaning. Words of wisdom come from a deep place, but they can be expressed in understandable and meaningful ways. When checked against common sense, it sounds right.

    The TPT version, even though more of a paraphrase translation, amplifies the meaning further. It adds the idea of wisdom coming from “the one with understanding.”

    Words of wisdom are like a fresh, flowing brook—
    like deep waters that spring forth from within,
    bubbling up inside the one with understanding.

    TPT (Proverbs 18:4)

    The TLB combines it all together into one concise thought.

    A wise man’s words express deep streams of thought.

    TLB (Proverbs 18:4)

    A wise person can find ways to express his deep thoughts in ways that others can understand. I summarize verse 4 as a wise man’s words gush from a heart of understanding (see the Pulpit Commentary verse 4). Finally, I conclude that Proverbs 18:4 means that deep words come up from within a person of understanding ready to be applied to life. The deep represents a person’s experiences; the brook represents applicability to life in the moment.

    From here we might go on to ask, how does a person find wisdom and obtain understanding? How do you know you have understanding? What are the fruits of understanding something? Wisdom is essentially recognizing that God has all the answers. Sometimes people gain it directly from the Holy Spirit and sometimes it comes through personal experience and reflection (lessons learned).

    Learn more about wisdom.
    Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
    Last Updated 2023/09/03

    Your Identity Solves Even Your Most Difficult Problems

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    In today’s world even Christians struggle with understanding who they are. Matt Pavlik wrote Confident Identity: Christian Strategies to Forget Who You Aren’t and Discover Who You Really Are to provide a clear guide for Christians to grasp the full significance of their identities. A Christian’s identity is God’s greatest gift only when it is opened and explored.

    “Confident Identity is a conversation-starter, a thought-generator, and a game-changer,” says Licensed Professional Counselor, Jessica Buczek. “Days after reading its final pages, I found myself deliberately and intentionally contemplating my sense of purpose. Combining Scripture, clinical theories, and practical tools, Matt has thoughtfully crafted a beautiful resource filled with an abundance of insightful questions, constructive ideas, easy-to-read charts, and meaningful activities and tests which allow an individual to thoroughly explore, expand, and exercise their identity.”

    Your identity is everything. If you understand who you are, then you’ll have purpose and you’ll know how to live your life. A lack of identity is at true epidemic proportions today because people search for meaning to the exclusion of their Christian origins. In Confident Identity, Pavlik enlightens Christian readers to their spiritual identities and unique personalities. God doesn’t make duplicates. He crafts each individual for a specific purpose.

    Confident Identity: Christian Strategies to Forget Who You Aren’t and Discover Who You Really Are (paperback, 230 pages, ISBN 978-0986383151) is available on Amazon (amazon.com/author/mattpavlik) for $21.95. More information is available at ConfidentIdentity.com.

    About the Author:
    Matt Pavlik, Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor, published his first book, Marriage From Roots To Fruits, in 2015. He has counseled individuals and couples at his Christian counseling practice, New Reflections Counseling, since 2003. He completed his Master of Arts in Clinical Pastoral Counseling from Ashland Theological Seminary and his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Illinois. Matt and his wife Georgette have been married for over 20 years and have four children.

    About the Publisher:
    Christian Concepts (an imprint of New Reflections Counseling, Inc. located in Dayton, Ohio) publishes books that help Christians reach their potential.

    God's Love Keeps Believers Safe

    God’s Love Keeps Believers Safe

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    Sin can’t separate Christians from God’s love. As a Christian, your relationship with God protects you from the condemnation of sin (Romans 8:1, 37-39).

    For you bless the godly, O LORD; you surround them with your shield of love.

    Psalm 5:12 NLT

    What is your position in relation to God? Are you standing in front of Him arguing your point or are you standing behind Him, allowing Him to represent you in all matters? The first position stands in conflict with God while the second stands in agreement.

    God’s Love Helps Interpret the Bible

    The Bible contains good news about God’s love for believers. The experiences and personal characteristics you bring to a Bible passage can influence how you interpret it. Two people can read the same Bible verse and draw two different conclusions. This is why we also need the Holy Spirit to help us know the truth.

    When you read about David moving the Ark of God, how do you relate to the story?

    David again gathered all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. And David arose and went with all the people who were with him from Baale-judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the name of the Lord of hosts who sits enthroned on the cherubim. And they carried the ark of God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. And Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart, with the ark of God, and Ahio went before the ark.

    And David and all the house of Israel were celebrating before the Lord, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals. And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God.

    2 Samuel 6:1-7 ESV

    If you read this passage believing your salvation is not secure, you could feel anger, condemnation, fear, and anxiety. You could wonder if you’ve done something wrong (or you’re about to) and God is going to punish you severely, or worse that you’ve lost your salvation.

    However, if you read it as a Christian who is secure in their salvation, you’ll be able to recognize that you have God’s favor as His child. You won’t worry about God’s response because you’ll know that His response is the best for you. God disciplines those he loves (Hebrews 12:6) so I’m not suggesting that God is easy on sin. I am suggesting that God is working for your good and you don’t need to live in fear. God’s love drives away fear (1 John 4:18).

    What Uzzah a Christian? If he wasn’t, you don’t have to worry if you are a Christian. If he was, then he will still be with God in heaven. For whatever reason, God’s disciple of Uzzah’s sin meant physical death. Sin does not determine whether a person goes to heaven or hell. Only a person’s standing with Jesus can do that.

    God’s Love Creates a Privileged Relationship

    When you become a child of God, you have a privileged relationship. You shouldn’t read the Bible as if you’re just like every character in the Bible. If you’re a Christian and you read it as if you’re Uzzah or King Saul instead of David or the apostle Paul, you’re going to feel fear instead of peace. David sinned greatly and God still considered him a man after His heart. God disciplined him, but he also blessed him. How can this be? The Holy Spirit of God was with David in ways that He wasn’t with Saul.

    There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

    Romans 8: 1-2 ESV

    Don’t let anything separate you from God’s love. Make sure you interpret Bible passages based on your new identity and standing, as a totally accepted person because you’re “in Christ Jesus.”

    Learn How to Protect Your Relationship With God
    Learn more about Uzzah
    Last edited 2023/07/23

    On The Fringe: The Truth About The Struggle To Belong

    On The Fringe: The Truth About The Struggle To Belong

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    Fringe, a TV show about weird, scientifically unexplainable events in the universe, debuted in 2008. It drew my interest at first because of the possibilities of the unknown. Because, well, exploring the mysteries of life is exciting.

    “Fringe” can have a much broader definition than scientific anomalies. It has a connotation of “flaky” or “fragile.” If someone is teetering on the edge of an abyss they are on the fringe. They are one step away from slipping out of a meaningful existence. They are like Frodo when he puts on the evil ring; he must fight to not be drawn into the shadow world.

    Non-Christians are on the Fringe

    Without Christ, it’s easy to become lost in an endless pursuit of mysterious unknowns. Maybe there is something of substance beyond the fringe? Maybe an alien race is monitoring our every move. What else is out there?

    You can become hooked on the lottery for the same reasons. Having lots of money sounds good, so it must be a good idea to buy into the lottery. I’ve got nothing else to do. I’ve got nothing to lose. — even though the odds of winning are small. You might say you have a fringe of a chance.

    The craving to seek and discover is a good (God-given) desire. However, some people will tenaciously pursue strange, made-up phenomena, while at the same time refusing to acknowledge the existence of a real God that cries out to them through His creation.

    For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

    Romans 1:20 NIV

    One definition of fringe is being “at the part of something that is farthest from the center.” This describes non-Christians quite well. They are present, able to see but choosing to face away from the center and pursue the outermost fringes of God’s creation. They keep hoping to find the fulfillment of their inner hunger in anything but God.

    Are You, Christian, on The Fringe?

    Another definition of fringe is “not completely belonging to or accepted by a group of people who share the same job, activities, etc.” It’s possible to be a Christian and know Christ, but still feel like you are on the fringe. This shouldn’t be so.

    Do you feel like you are on the fringe? Are you hanging in the balance? Do you know you have worth, but can’t seem to feel your true worth in Christ?

    Christ calls all who belong to Him to move toward Him. Because of His awesome sacrifice, all who are far away from the center are able to move toward the center.

    Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

    Hebrews 4:16 NIV

    “I am weird” and “I am worthless” are lies. Just because others don’t understand you (even other Christians) or you haven’t found a way to meet your needs doesn’t mean you are fringe material. Every one of God’s people belongs.

    Living according to God’s plan for you means you will need to walk a different path than others walk. You have God’s favor as you walk on the path He made for you (see John 21:20-23).

    God smiles as He thinks of you. God is always thinking about you. God is smiling at you. Look up to see His face.

    Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy;
        no shadow of shame will darken their faces.

    Psalm 34:5 NLT

    Learn more about belonging.
    More on the TV show at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fringe_(TV_series)
    Definition from https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/on-the-fringes-of-something
    Image by Aravind kumar from Pixabay

    Play Is Essential To Being Your Best

    Play Is Essential To Being Your Best

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    When you rake leaves in your yard, is it fun or work? Your answer probably depends on your purpose. Your goal might be to play in the leaves. Or, it might be to make your yard look presentable when you’d rather be doing something more fun.

    Children will spend hours raking leaves when they see it as fun. But tell them it’s a chore they have to do, and they’ll spend hours moving slowly and complaining about the job.

    What is Play?

    Play is a time-out from reality in order to better understand reality. Share on X

    In his classic book Homo Ludens, Johan Huizinga defined play as “a free activity standing quite consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not serious,’ but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner.”

    Play can be work you enjoy; if it becomes drudgery, it has become something else. Play is relaxing; if it becomes stressful, it has become something else. People choose to play; if it is forced, it has become something else. Play is a glimpse of heaven. If it involves sin (missing God’s ideal), it has become something else.

    Play is Related to Purpose and Rest

    Play is important because it allows you to connect with the reason God created you. Kids use their imagination to re-create (recreate, grow, build) their understanding of God, self, and life. Forgetting how to have fun is never a good thing. Perhaps the Sabbath is meant to be a time to have fun instead of working so hard.

    If your life is all about work, you’ll see yourself as an object that others use. You lose your value. You believe what you want is irrelevant. With a worldview like this, you become only a shell of a person. You can become so focused on tasks that you no longer feel like a person.

    One of my favorite things to do is install insulation in a hot attic. Just kidding! I’ve taken on this task a couple of times and it always triggers the thought, this must be what hell feels like. Isolation from people. Irritation from glass fibers. Extreme heat. Maybe insulating is better as a non-summer activity? I’d rather be raking leaves.

    When work becomes the priority in life, you’ll lose touch with your true purpose and you’ll become depressed. That’s because you’re made for more than being a machine. Machines don’t have feelings; they tolerate meaningless repetition.

    God made you to have fun. He made you to experience joy.

    Different people will define “fun” differently. What is work to one, will be fun to another. There will even be different times when what was once work is play, or what was once play is work.

    How Much Fun Are You (Having)?

    Could you be experiencing depression or anxiety because you have a faulty view of life that emphasizes work over play? Maybe you didn’t become this way on purpose, but your life has changed slowly and now you’ve forgotten how to have fun.

    Do a quick check of your current lifestyle.

    How much of your life is work and how much is fun?
    Has your “fun” turned into a chore?
    When was the last time you let loose with an all-out belly laugh?
    When was the last time you chose to be more extravagant than efficient?
    What are you afraid will happen if you pursue more fun in your life?

    Heaven is going to be like work that feels like play, not play that feels like work. Share on X

    With the right motivation, your work will honor God, but God also taught His people to have times of celebration and rest. See Luke 15:23-24 and Psalm 118:24.

    So this week, will you be intentional about truly playing? Set some time aside for this ultimate way to enter God’s rest. You can’t reach God’s purpose for your life without play.

    Read about desire fulfillment.
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    Last updated June 25, 2023

    Authentic Sharing Leaves People Blessed

    Authentic Sharing Leaves People Blessed

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    We thrive when God shares His life with us through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Sharing your life with others might be the best way to encourage someone. Paul describes his desire for mutual edification to the believers in Rome:

    One of the things I always pray for is the opportunity, God willing, to come at last to see you. For I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift that will help you grow strong in the Lord. When we get together, I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours.

    Romans 1:10-12 NLT

    A testimony is a statement of personal experience. It can’t be refuted, but it is also hard to deny. Testimonies are usually intentional and planned, but casual sharing can be just as effective.

    Sharing Your Spirit is a Blessing

    Others need your perspective. It can be incredibly encouraging just to hear someone else acknowledge God’s truth as real. God gives us life to share with others. What is more precious than life? Sharing your life is like a supercharged spiritual discipline.

    Because we are made in God’s image, we are spirit at our core too. God made us to have some control over what we keep hidden and what we reveal.

    For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

    John 4:24 NLT

    If God invests in revealing who He is to us, we should also spend time revealing ourselves to each other. By sharing ourselves we are also revealing who God is because God lives within us. This kind of spiritual sharing goes beyond sharing physical resources.

    God’s Spirit has shown you everything. His Spirit finds out everything, even what is deep in the mind of God.

    1 Corinthians 2:10 CEV

    To see and know God is eternal life (John 17:3).

    Mutual Sharing is Superior

    What is motivating you when you share? Interestingly enough, sharing benefits both the speaker and the listener. In most relationships, balanced sharing is more rewarding. Listening can be work but it can also be an act of receiving a blessing. Speaking can be work, for example when someone is teaching, but it can also be advantageous.

    The speaker is blessed by knowing that what is shared makes a difference in someone else’s life. Sharing is also important for another more subtle reason: not sharing is unnatural. An example of this is when someone gives another the silent treatment. People become emotionally sick when they cannot share their lives with others.

    Even though sharing is beneficial, this doesn’t mean it is healthy to share indiscriminately. Even God reveals Himself only to specific people.

    My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

    Luke 10:22 NLT

    Some people have no interest or use for God’s words. They do not understand. They do not know eternal life. God says that you don’t have to waste your time with these people. But there are plenty of others who are poor in spirit. They want to hear the words of truth. They are hungry for the life you have flowing within you.

    Don’t give to dogs what belongs to God. They will only turn and attack you. Don’t throw pearls down in front of pigs. They will trample all over them.

    Matthew 7:6 CEV

    Too often people are taught to not be selfish and to listen more than speak. But if everyone followed this advice, no one would be talking! I encourage you to intentionally seek a balance in your relationships. Both speaking and listening are powerful blessings.

    When you speak, be deliberate about sharing the best parts of your spiritual life. What has God been doing in your heart? When you are listening to others, realize they are sharing the “pearls of the kingdom” with you. You are treading on holy ground. Be respectful of this blessing.

    Speak and listen with all of your heart.

    Learn about overcoming shame.
    Learn about the limits of self-revelation.
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    What Is Sin? A Foolish Rebellion Against God

    What Is Sin? A Foolish Rebellion Against God

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    Your understanding of sin can have a profound effect on your life. If your definition is inaccurate, you will be either too judgmental or too lenient with yourself and others. What is sin? What is the best way to understand sin? Is sinning different that sin?

    Sin is Rooted in a Sinful Nature

    What is a sinful nature? It is the condition of our existence that we are born into. It cannot be escaped by any effort apart from God.

    A sinful nature is a core (primary) attitude in the heart: a desire to live your own life, with your own rules, apart from God. Instead of acknowledging and choosing dependence upon God, sin is rebellion against God and what He stands for. Rebellion can be open and demonstrative or silent but seething below the surface.

    Those who desire to live apart from God will get what they wish for. Hell is a place absent of God’s goodness, with no hope of escape.

    Sin is Different than Sinning

    Sin is the disease of the heart. None of us are born ready to choose God wholeheartedly.

    We are powerless to separate our sinful nature from our physical bodies. Everyone (except Jesus, Elijah, and Enoch) will die physically because of their sin. Jesus died, but not because of His sin. Elijah and Enoch were sinful like the rest of us, but God took them to heaven before they died. The point is that sin is fatal.

    Sin is ongoing but sinning (committing a sin) is a distinct moment in time. Sinning is trivial compared to sin. Sin is more like an incurable disease and sinning is like a natural symptom of the disease. Ceasing sinning does not eliminate sin. But the person who is cured of the disease by faith in Jesus will eventually stop sinning.

    We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.

    Romans 6:6-7 NLT

    Sinning is an action. Sinning is essentially involuntary for non-believers. Because Christ defeated sin and death, sinning is a choice for believers.

    Believers are Saints, Not Sinners

    A non-believer is a “sinner.” A believer is a “saint.” A sinner will continue sinning. A saint will sin, but not continue in the same defiant way over time. God gives saints the ability to repent.

    John Piper answers the question, What is Sin? on his website. He does an excellent job explaining and supporting the idea that no one is good except God. We all fall short, therefore, none of us are capable of good works (apart from God working in us).

    For as good of a job he does providing the needed support to answer the question, I am disappointed with his final, concise definition:

    Sinning is any feeling or thought or speech or action that comes from a heart that does not treasure God over all other things.

    John Piper

    As a counselor, I see this definition as confusing at best or containing errors at worst. The definition is complicated and susceptible to misunderstanding or misinterpretation. Here are some questions it raises for me:

    • What about a heart that does treasure God? A saint will treasure God. But a saint is still capable of sinning.
    • Sinning is different than sin. How does this answer the question, what is sin?
    • Feelings and thoughts, and even speech and actions can be indicators of a sinful heart. They are like the smoke resulting from a raging fire.
    • Feelings and thoughts can be involuntary. They just happen. God judges sin and condemns it. Should a definition of sin focus on condemning feelings? When people burst into tears or express they are afraid, do they need to know first and foremost that they are sinning? Negative feelings can indicate wrong belief about God (needs correction), but they don’t necessarily mean unbelief (sinful).

    A better definition will focus on the heart, the core, the root of the problem. I propose a simpler, direct definition: Sin is brokenness producing an attitude of foolish rebellion against God and what He stands for.

    The saint practices learning how to stop sinning. The saint values God’s truth. The saint sees dependence upon God as the only way life can possibly work. There can be only one true Kingdom — God’s. Attempting to set up one’s own kingdom apart from God is nothing less than sinful insurrection.

    Read more about Elijah and Enoch
    Read more about Unbelief
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    4 Steps To A Confident Identity

    4 Steps To A Confident Identity

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    Confidence can be elusive but your identity is the key to finding it. Overshoot and you become proud or arrogant. Undershoot and you carry a heavy burden of discouragement. It’s possible to be confident and humble at the same time. It all depends on how you orient your life: where you find your identity.

    Becoming confident takes time. You can develop it as you experience life when considering God as your audience of one. You can become your ideal self–the best version of you that you are pleased with.

    Your ideal self is precisely who God means for you to be. You can’t know your ideal self instantaneously. Your identity is God’s greatest gift to you only if you open it up and discover who you are.

    I love the following quote, which I first discovered through Darlene Harris while planning an article for her site, andherestorethmysoulproject.org.

    Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.

    St. Catherine of Siena

    This means you have a significant destiny to fulfill by being your ideal self. If you knew who God meant for you to be you wouldn’t want to be anyone else.

    To become your ideal self you must journey through four developmental stages. Each stage has a primary focus: caregiver, creation, crisis, and finally Christ. Before you can reach your full potential in one stage, you must complete the challenge of the previous stage. You can work on multiple stages at a time, but incomplete work limits your progress.

    1. Caregiver-Focused Identity

    You start life dependent on your primary caregivers. You don’t have anything to contribute to others. Your only real job is to learn how to receive from others. Can you receive from others without becoming unnecessarily dependent on them? You can receive and grow at the same time. You receive so you can grow.

    2. Creation-Focused Identity

    You develop competency and skill by interacting with the external world. At first, you learn to crawl, walk, and run. You learn who you are based on who you connect with the world beyond your body. If you do this well, you contribute to others through the work of your hands. If you don’t, you can become dependent on creation, instead of your creator, to sustain a positive outlook on life.

    3. Crisis-Focused Identity

    At some point in your life, you face a crisis. A crisis tests your internalized growth or identity. It forces you to clarify your worldview and specifically your Godview. Will you choose to:

    1. Avoid God and return to creation to meet your needs?
    2. Attempt to move Against God and redefine creation to meet your needs?
    3. Ally with God and learn how to let God meet your needs?

    If you reject God in some way (option 1 or 2), you’ll likely choose some other ally to depend on (creation or caregivers) as if they were God. You’re vulnerable to developing an addiction because you remain crisis focused instead of Christ-focused. You struggle to accept a good God in a world where you’ve experienced evil.

    4. Christ-Focused Identity

    You can become a Christian at any of the four steps along the way to identity maturity. However, if you’re not a Christian by the time you reach stage three, the process of resolving your crisis by allying with God and becoming a Christian allows you to enter stage four.

    In this final state, you’re sold out on becoming exactly who God made you to be. You desire to align yourself with God’s reality, not a reality you make up. You’re determined to remove any false ideas concerning who you are.

    Can you feel the burning in your heart to become all that God made you to be? Are you stuck at any stage in particular? God has all His resources ready to help you become who He made you to be. Then you can set the world on fire. The material in this post comes from my book To Identity and Beyond.

    Read more about identity.
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    You Are Wonderfully Limited

    You Are Wonderfully Limited

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    Most people think of being limited as a negative, but not God. Another way of saying you are limited is you were created on purpose and for a purpose. Your limits are restrictive but they also highlight your unique gifting. Others have what you don’t and you have what others don’t.

    I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
        your works are wonderful,
        I know that full well.

    Psalm 139:14 NIV

    God Made You Limited

    You can’t be anything you want to be, but you can be more of who God made you to be. God has already done the hard work of creating you exactly as He wants you to be. You need to discover who you are, not create who you want to be. The mapping of your DNA determines how your body will grow. Likewise, the mapping of your identity (God’s design for you) determines your personality. Your purpose flows out of your identity.

    To be human and have a personality is to be limited. As a believer, trying to be someone you are not is exhausting and ultimately impossible. You don’t have to make up who you are or wonder if you are inferior. Unhealthy comparison means believing you’re not good enough and you should be like someone else. Healthy comparison allows you to see how you’re different and value the differences. Uniqueness creates value.

    Being limited simply means you have definition. If you weren’t limited, you’d be God. You’d have every ability God has. But even God is limited. He can’t be evil. Limited doesn’t have to mean incapable or impotent; it can mean intentional focus.

    You Have a Purpose Just Like Jesus

    Jesus’s primary identity and purpose is to reveal who God is. Jesus is human; He has a personality. Jesus is also God and when we see Jesus, we see all that God is, too (John 14:9).

    Jesus prioritized the time He had on earth. For example, because Jesus is also God, He could express perfect athletic ability. He could have come to earth to be a pro athlete, but He didn’t because that’s not His purpose.

    By becoming a person and following God’s will, Jesus limited himself in many ways so He could remain focused on completing His mission. To limit attention is to focus. Jesus limited His ministry to what God purposed for Him. He didn’t try to be everything to everybody; He stayed focused on His purpose. Following are several scriptures that define Jesus’s focus.

    So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

    John 5:19 ESV

    Jesus answered, “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”

    John 18:37 NIV

    And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

    “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
        because he has anointed me
        to proclaim good news to the poor.
    He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
        and recovering of sight to the blind,
        to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

    Luke 4:17-19 ESV

    Knowing Your Limits Helps You Know God’s Will

    If you can accept your limits, they will lead you to your unique gifts. What you can’t do highlights all the more what you can do. You can’t be anything you want to be, but you can be more of exactly who God made you to be. Jesus has His purpose and you have yours. Focusing on who God made you to be maximizes your potential. You’ll fulfill God’s will.

    Read more about identity.
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    Your Past Is The Secret To Your Faith

    Your Past Is The Secret To Your Faith

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    Focusing on your past can help you trust God with your future. Many people discount the past. They say things like:

    • “It’s already done.”
    • “I can’t change the past.”
    • “Dwelling on the past is a waste of time.”

    Faith is normally thought of as forward-looking. Faith involves trusting during times of uncertainty. Do you know what is going to happen next in your life? The future might be more uncertain than the past, but the past can also instill doubt. Therefore, the past is as much alive as the future but in its own way.

    Faith is Required for The Future

    The future is mostly hidden and unknown. Even though the Bible is clear about the ultimate future of all believers (in heaven), no one knows for sure when that will happen. Only God fully knows the past and the future because only He is in complete control.

    Remember the things I have done in the past. For I alone am God! I am God, and there is none like me. Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish.

    Isaiah 46:9-10 NLT

    These verses address the past (remember it), the future (God knows it), and sovereignty (God can do whatever He wants). These two verses, then, are sufficient reasons to trust God, or at least to fear Him. So, we have no choice really. We must trust God with the future. But what about the past?

    Faith is Required for the Past

    If the past is a done deal, why would trust be necessary at all? Consider this: Which has more influence over your present behavior, the past or the future?

    The past provides much stronger clues about your identity, the identity of the world, and even God. The past is alive because you are alive. You can remember experiences, draw from their reality, and make decisions in the present. If you have been through an overwhelmingly (or any) negative (or positive) event, it is still likely influencing your understanding of the world and ultimately your behavior.

    One can make an argument that we also need to trust God with the past. Experience can remain as unreconciled mysteries. You can be certain that an event has taken place, but what about the meaning of the event? Can you be certain you understand historical events?

    The past is fully visible and fully known to you, but does it make any sense? It certainly raises many challenging questions such as:

    • Why did such and such happen? What is the purpose of it?
    • Why does God allow so many bad things to happen?
    • What can I learn from it? How is it relevant to me?

    Your Testimony is Your Past

    How has God been working in your life? What is He doing? What has He brought you through? When you can look back and feel confidence rather than doubt, something powerful has happened.

    These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

    1 Peter 1:7 NLT

    God wants you to focus on the past, so you can remember who He is. This can fuel your faith in Him, allowing you to make faithful decisions in the present. The future might remain elusive, but based on your experiences you can let God worry about the future.

    The longer you have lived, the more past you will have to go on, and the less future to worry about. That’s not to say anyone should wish they were older, but to enjoy the present because we are making memories today that will benefit us later.

    More about Faith.
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    Find Purpose Focusing On The Kingdom

    Find Purpose Focusing On The Kingdom

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    Whenever you are lost, look up. Whenever your purpose is elusive, be mindful of God’s kingdom.

    Life can be confusing. God might be mysterious, but He’s not confusing. He is perfectly clear about His intentions for His people. He gave us an example of how to live in Jesus. The rest of life is just details. As long as you are seeking to be more like Jesus, you can pursue whatever course in life that God allows. God’s will is not met by choosing one particular vocation, place to live, or church, but it is met by focusing on God’s kingdom.

    But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

    Matthew 6:33 ESV

    God’s kingdom begins with the recognition that Jesus Christ, the human-God who lived among us, has something amazing to offer all of us who believe. Jesus has a past, present, and future message for you that is personal. What Jesus has to say is relevant to the whole of your life.

    Purpose Has a Context

    It is impossible to understand the meaning of life without the ability to see God’s kingdom. Those who can see Jesus and believe He is God will be able to hear God’s voice and know God’s will in daily living. Purpose, then, comes together in the combination of:

    • What needs to be done to further God’s kingdom.
    • What God the Father wants done at a particular moment in time.
    • What gifts and abilities God bestowed upon you.

    The context for these three parts is the work God has prepared for us in advance (Ephesians 2:10). You can’t understand yourself apart from God’s creative purposes.

    Purpose Has a Cost

    Without the connection-to-Jesus context, any work becomes personal effort for a personal kingdom. This is why Jesus tells us to lose our sense of life in order to find life.

    Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

    If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.

    Matthew 10:39 ESV, NLT

    There is a necessary step in the Christian life to be willing to do anything and everything that Jesus wants for you (Luke 14:26–33). This means giving up immediate satisfaction for what will make an eternal difference if the satisfaction interferes with the building of God’s kingdom. Doing so is difficult because it comes with a cost. It takes genuine faith to pass on the immediate for the eternal.

    Purpose Has a Focus

    For the person who can give up their life, there is complete freedom. Purpose will no longer be clouded by sin, guilt, or shame because of a focus shift.

    Without God’s perspective, you have only yourself to focus on. You will more easily become lost in your inadequacies. You can discount and overlook the wonder of being created in Christ Jesus for good works. But when you look into God’s face, you can receive His approval and diminish your shame (Psalm 34:5).

    Purpose is Without Equal

    Purpose is an active state of living out the unique aspects of who God created you to be in the midst of work (ministry) that is God’s will. Each person can minister God’s grace in its various forms to fulfill God’s will in unique ways (1 Peter 4:10).

    Many things in life can be lost, but in Jesus, many things are found and can never be taken away. By God’s grace, you can enjoy the existence that God has given to you. The way you experience and respond to life is personal between you and God.

    Read more about purpose.
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    The Christian’s Advantage to Lasting Fulfillment

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    The secret to fulfillment is hunger. The stronger your desire, the greater your fulfillment. You can strengthen your desires by first being aware of them and then correctly prioritizing them.

    You can starve for lack of a healthy desire. When you ache for the right stuff, you’ll be satisfied.

    Do you realize you have more than one way to experience fulfillment?

    When most people think of their desires, they focus on their immediate physical needs. But God also created you with emotional and spiritual desires, which provide a deeper level of satisfaction. Think of these desires as three stomachs, each with its distinct appetite or craving:

    1. Worldly Desires (food, sex, entertainment, etc.)
    2. Identity Desires (purpose, love, etc.)
    3. Kingdom Desires (glorifying God by living for Christ)

    To experience contentment and satisfaction, you must learn how to manage your desires. You can’t rely on one stomach to the exclusion of the others. You’d starve. The secret to fulfillment is attending to all three desires with the right priority and balance.

    After your worldly fulfillment reaches its capacity, move on to experiencing and fulfilling your identity desires. As your identity fulfillment reaches its capacity, move on to your kingdom desires.

    Worldly Desires

    Worldly desires are temporary physical wants or needs. They won’t be around in heaven, or they’ll function differently. Physical desires are like sugar. Sugar is highly desirable but fails to provide lasting nutrition.

    Being satisfied, content, and fulfilled aren’t only possible, they’re also God’s will for you. However, gaining your heart’s desire doesn’t mean you can have every possession or pleasure you’ve ever wanted. Having every superficial want met in the way you want it isn’t possible. If you eat too much of the same food, your taste for the food will eventually become saturated.

    Instant pleasure is different than lasting joy. Most things are wants, not needs. If you ache too long for the wrong things you might end up getting what you want.

    Don’t make the things of life more important than God intended. If you don’t exercise self-control, you could end up getting what you want without fulfilling God’s purpose for your life. Some desires really are distractions and not worth the effort.

    Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

    Matthew 10:39 ESV

    Identity Desires

    Identity desires are like organic, whole foods. They fully nourish and fill you in ways that sugar can’t.

    Meeting these desires should take priority over your worldly desires. When you focus on identity desires, you reach for the best things in life — the things that no one can steal.

    Five longings God meets when you’re His child:

    1. Unconditional Love and Acceptance: God knows who you really are. He always sees you at your best, even when you’re at your worst. God is love.
    2. Persistent Hope: God has the plan to make life better. At some point in the future, life is guaranteed to be perfect and last forever.
    3. Imminent Purpose: God created you to play a critical role in accomplishing His plans. God wants your active participation. God has a specific purpose for your existence. In this respect, you’re indispensable. You aren’t optional or replaceable. You’re significant and important.
    4. Faithful Security: God is always with you. He will never abandon you. He will never leave you nor forsake you.
    5. Meaningful Connection: God participates in an interactive relationship with you. God wants a dialogue with you. God is your father.

    God is responsible for meeting these needs. No other person is completely capable like God is. Cloud and Townsend say that relationships are God’s delivery system for all emotional needs. However, you can’t expect or insist any one particular person meets your needs.

    You won’t be able to enjoy life unless your identity desires are being met. If you’re unsatisfied with work and life, this probably means a basic emotional need is unmet. When these needs go unmet, your hunger should drive you back to God.

    Kingdom Desires

    Kingdom Desires are fulfilled by spiritual food. While all healthy desires are from God, kingdom desires are an exceptional hunger for seeing God’s work completed.

    Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
    But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
    Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
    “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”

    —John 4:31–34

    You have an advantage as a Christian. You have a stomach (an appetite) for spiritual fulfillment. Humans won’t ever be completely satisfied until they experience a spiritual hunger only God can fill.

    Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
    Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.

    —Matthew 5:3, 6

    If your identity desires are met, you should be able to pursue your kingdom desires. But this doesn’t mean you’ll naturally pursue kingdom desires unless you intentionally put them first. To appreciate spiritual fulfillment sometimes you must fast from worldly desires and look beyond identity desires.

    God desires that you pursue Christlikeness and fulfill the great commission. When Paul explains contentment to Timothy, he mentions several examples of Christlike behavior: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.

    But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.

    —1 Timothy 6:6–11

    Godliness is acting maturely like God. Contentment means you’re satisfied with what you have while pursuing God’s kingdom. Don’t give up the eternal in order to hold onto the temporary.

    How fulfilled are you as a Christian? Do you see your advantage? Isn’t God amazing how He created you to have multiple appetites? What can you do right now to ensure you have a balanced desire diet?

    Photo by Edgar Castrejon on Unsplash