Tag: Jesus

Making new labels

Published on by faithfulone75 Comments

School recess, playground games.  So many memories flood my mind when I hear those words. 

Dodgeball, softball, Red Rover, four square…..we spent all of recess in elementary school passing the time with those games.  And as fun as they were, there was also the anxiety of standing in a line with other kids.  Waiting and hoping to be picked for the team.  Was I cool enough?  Was I liked enough?  Would I be chosen?  I was never the team captain, I was always in the line, waiting to hear my name be called.  Maybe you can relate.

We all want to be included.  We all desire to be invited in.  Even my introvert friends want inclusion (even though they reserve the right to still say no!).  In our souls, as people designed for community, we have a longing to be included, or chosen.

Old Testament Jews understood this concept well.  They were God’s chosen people.  Deuteronomy 14:2 says “for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession”.  They spent all day, every day, knowing that they were special.  They knew the holy scriptures that declared that they were in fact, chosen by God.  They did not have to wonder or worry about being included.  They understood that as fact.  So, they had a difficult time accepting that, when Jesus came, He declared that even the Gentiles and the dreaded Samaritans were also chosen!  But we’re not here to talk about them, let’s talk about you and me!

If you have ever felt the sting of NOT being chosen or included, then I know you also understand the joy and happiness that comes when you ARE invited in.  I have good news for you today!

You have been chosen by God for the most significant team in human history!  The most amazing “team captain” of all, has set His sights on you!  He has called your name and included you among those He desires to have on His team! 

La Jolla California on a recent trip~~

Ephesians 1:3-4 puts it this way, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight…”  John 15:16 says “You did not choose me, but I chose you…”

Let those words sink in for a moment.  God chose YOU!  Say it out loud right now (ok, maybe just in your head if you’re not alone…)  Say “God chose me!”  Don’t say it with hesitation, with a question mark at the end.  Say it with gusto. With an exclamation point!

Maybe your relationship with God is spot on today!  You are in the word, in church, and in prayer regularly.  Maybe you have just started a relationship with Him, and you are still figuring out what that looks like.  And maybe your relationship with God is…complicated. Whatever the case may be, know this; you are loved by Him!  How do I know?  Well, because you are reading this now, and I believe God led you here today.  And because He led you here, He desires for you to know Him.  And because He drew you here and desires to know you, you are loved. 

What you do with that knowledge is up to you, but He is calling your name.  Asking you to be part of His team.

Imagine you are in that line of kids, waiting to be picked at recess.  The captain calls your name.  In that moment, you were chosen for the team.  But you still have the choice whether or not to step out of the line and join the captain.  We can stay where we are, but we are still chosen.  It’s not until we accept that invitation that we actually join the team.

You are who God says you are, and He says you are chosen. My sister, if you have placed your faith in Jesus and trust in His work on the cross and in His resurrection for your salvation from sin, then He has called you, and you are chosen!  Rest in that truth today.  Soak in it for a while.  (Think, long hot bubble bath soaking, the kind that wrinkles your skin!)

1 Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

Called out of darkness, into His marvelous light. Chosen!

Fresh wisteria blooms~

As we work to reframe and combat the negative words that we hear from others, or from the enemy, words matter.  You may hear “not wanted” or “rejected”.  But God says you are:

Loved

Forgiven

Accepted

Chosen

And a new creation!

If you are keeping a list in your pretty notebook, add Chosen and New Creation to the list!

Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new is here!”  What a wonderful truth! 

Since we have Christ in us, we are a totally new creation.  We are not recycled or repurposed, but remade! 

Our old selves (before we knew Jesus) were without Christ.  But Jesus is the light of the world.  Once His beautiful light enters us, all the ugliness is exposed.  And He gets to work right away making room for His presence to fill and complete us.  He starts to get rid of the ugly and change us.  And almost immediately, His glorious light shines through and we are made new from the inside out! 

Isaiah 43:19 “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”  Here, God didn’t say that He would add water to the streams He had already created, but that He would make streams appear in the wasteland. 

Because I am a new creation, I am not a slave to my old ways.  The old is gone, the new has come!

Ephesians 4:22-24 teaches us this truth: “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” 

A new creation in Christ is not a second chance.  God is not limited to second chances, as though they could run out.  Rather, we are a NEW creation, a NEW beginning!  God is a God of new beginnings.  Even if you have wandered away.  Even if you use to follow Him, but something happened to change that.  You can restart with God.  Let Him create in you a new heart!  Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

My dear sweet friend, who is in every way possible, a new creation, said this to me.  “Remembering that I am a new creation helps me to step into what God is calling me to do.  I have to choose to no longer identify with the labels from my past that would certainly imprison me.  There’s freedom in Christ!”

The new me has fresh eyes.  Eyes to see beyond my circumstances, to see God’s purposes.  A new creation can be like nothing you’ve ever seen before!

Whether you are looking for inclusion or a fresh start, Jesus offers you both!

Father God, when I feel defeated and like I am never going to get things right, remind me that I am new in Christ.  I feel your tender mercies toward me every morning.  But sometimes, when the world doesn’t choose me, and I feel stuck in patterns of life that make me feel trapped, I forget that you have made me new.  Thank you for your word and the truths I read there.  I am chosen.  I am a new creation.  I choose to declare this in a fresh way today! Amen.

Purposefully,

Shelli

These two lovely, sweet sisters are amazing New Creations in Jesus! Donna and Amber!

A series of words

Published on by faithfulone73 Comments

Words are a big part of our lives.  Words shape us.  Words influence us.  Words can wound us.  And words can heal us.

The words we speak to others can impact them in big ways.  When I have a close relationship with someone, the words they speak to me can influence me greatly.  They can change the way I see the world, and they can often change the way I see myself.  If you have ever had someone close to you speak loving words into your life, you know how lasting those words can be.  And by the same token, negative words spoken in anger or out of criticism can ring in our ears and minds for years to come. 

Words matter.

Do you remember as a child, hearing “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me”?  I do.  I think that little rhyme was probably invented by a well-meaning parent that wanted to encourage their child, who was probably hurting from unkind words spoken to or about them.  They were intended to help. 

If only it were true. 

But words do hurt.  We often recall the hurtful words spoken to us much longer than we can kind words.  In an article by Lindsey Horton regarding the science behind the effects of negative words, she said this: “…negative words, whether spoken, heard, or thought, not only cause situational stress, but also contribute to long-term anxiety”. 

Sometimes those negative words come from the world.  They are spoken to us through social media and more subtlety through tv ads and so on. 

Sometimes those words repeat in our mind from the voices in our childhood, or sometimes they come back to us from a painful adult relationship. 

And sometimes…they come from our own negative self-talk.

Stop right here and think of three words that you might use to describe yourself. (I’ll wait).  I’m willing to bet that at least one or two of those words are negative in some way. 

Photo credit: Krissy Basham (AKA my daughter)

Here are some words that I know we often say about ourselves (as women), even if we don’t say them out loud, or to others. We say:

I’m lazy

I’m not smart enough

I’m overweight

I’m ugly

I’m unlovable

I’m useless

I’m a failure

I’m sure there are others that you say about yourself, words I didn’t list here.  Typically, we have no trouble finding grace and kind words to speak to others, but when it comes to ourselves, we aren’t usually as kind. 

In a world full of criticism and negativity, it is important to be kind to one another.  But I also believe that this kindness needs to start with how we speak to ourselves.  Proverbs 4:23 says it this way: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it”.  Guard your heart.  Words matter.  The words we speak to ourselves matter.

Since we are considering the impact of words, I think we should start with considering God’s word, the Bible. 

Last week on the blog, I mentioned a few of the words that God says about us in scripture.  I want to dive into this a little bit further, so I have decided to do a series here on the blog (something I haven’t done so far).  I want to spend the next several weeks together, looking into the words that God says about us.  Words that will help us reframe the negative words that we hear from the world or even in our own thoughts.

God says I am loved!

As human beings, this is the number one thing that we all desire to hear.  “I love you’”

The enemy of our souls works diligently to fill our mind and heart with lies and thoughts that keep us far from God.  And he chips away first, at the foundation of everything, love. 

By far, the greatest human desire is for love.  Oxford Dictionary defines love as “An intense feeling of deep affection”.  We see this desire for love displayed everywhere in our culture.  We seek to receive love from people.  We start (and end) relationships searching for love, romantic relationships as well as relationships with friends.  We even have children out of a desire for love. 

As humans we desire to give love as well as to receive love.  The idea of love is a driving force for all of humanity regardless of their geographical location, heritage, upbringing, race or gender.  We all desire to be told that we are loved. 

Photo credit: Krissy Basham (AKA my daughter)

I desire to believe that I am who God says I am.  And God says that I am loved by Him!

Look what Jeremiah 13:3 tells us.  “The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love;  I have drawn you with unfailing kindness”.”

This love of the Lord is everlasting, lasting forever, never changing, solid and sure.  

1 John 4:19 says “We love, because He first loved us.”  You and I possess the ability to love because He (God) loved us first!  How did He love us?

Jesus, God’s own Son, is speaking in John 3:16 and He says it this way.  “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”  The way to heaven is through Jesus Christ.  And because the sin of man broke the world, the way that God designed it, He sent His own Son to make a way for us to know this love and to be with Him forever.  John 15:13 tells us this truth “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  

This fierce love was displayed in the ultimate act of love.  God gave His Son, and He then,  willingly laid down His life, so that your life and mine could be redeemed.  There is no greater love than the sacrificial love that God showed to us.

So when the enemy starts to whisper in your ear that you are not loved or that you are not worthy of love (human love or God’s love), rest assured of the truth that you ARE indeed, loved greatly by the Lover Of Our Souls! He went to great lengths to show that love to us.  Our part is to believe it.  To let it settle down into our souls and fill us. 

Photo credit: Krissy Basham (AKA my daughter)

The greatest human need is to be loved.  What an amazing thing to recognize that our greatest human need has been met in the powerful and mighty work of God!

If you are struggling with this truth today, then I believe it is no accident that you are reading these words.  I believe that God sent you here today because He is speaking to you.  He directed you here so that He could tell you what He knows you need to hear.  

You are loved.

I hope that you’ll join me over the next few weeks, as we learn the words that God speaks about us in scripture.  My desire is that you will allow these words to influence and define who you truly are, and how you see yourself. And that you will begin to replace the negative voice inside, that works to defeat you with the words of God.  

Challenge:  Use Google or your Bible app to search for  scriptures that speak of God’s love for you.  Write some of them down in a notebook.  (The pretty kind that you will want to look at again and again!)  And then choose one to commit to memory.  This will help replace those negative things you hear.  Words matter.  What God says about you matters the most!

The world does not get the final say on your worth,  value or loveable-ness.   Only Jesus does!

Purposefully,

Shelli

Photo credit: Krissy Basham (AKA my daughter)