The Way We See Ourselves

I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high. 

Leviticus 26:13

I used to think that the concept of self-love was just new age messed-up theology, a mere excuse to resist humility and the concept of sin. Some of it is, but there is truth to having confidence in the value God places on us. It is important that we learn to see ourselves through His gracious eyes if we are going to walk through the valleys. This level of confidence is something I have always struggled with. I continue to struggle with it as God is teaching me to love who He made me in this season of life. 

He recently revealed to me that my lack of self acceptance was hurting me. It was keeping me from standing strong in the face of battles. While I thought I was confident enough, I see now that, as Jesus followers, we are always learning new ways to see ourselves and others.  Know that I write this to encourage you as well as myself. 

The Holy Spirit recently revealed my heart as He shined a spotlight on some very ugly feelings that self love brought out in me. And I realized that although I have heard the topic taken to extremes before, it was obvious that just thinking about loving myself in this way made me feel shame and fear...stuff Jesus doesn't do. He revealed that the result of believing Him is to adopt His way of thinking. Eventually faith changes our mind. Believing Him leads to thinking like Him when it comes to people, life, ourselves and everything else.

 

If we don't agree that we are wonderfully made and that what He makes is beautiful and valuable, we won't be able to agree with Him about others. If we can't look beyond our flawed humanity and see the beauty He put in us and the potential He gives us, we will always be suceptible to cowering before the enemy. We were made to be warriors. 

Warriors don't cower; They stand strong in the face of adversity. They know their calling and value and are not easily manipulated. When we don't believe Him about our own or anyone's value, we open a place for the enemy to work and divide. Satan will go so far as to turn some of what we like to call "humility" into self hate. He can turn real humility into pride as well. Be careful with this! There is a true difference between humility and self hate and I'm not sure most of us know what that is. 

 

Know this: any idea of yourself that makes you fearful and cower from spiritual war is not humility. Any idea you have that keeps you from holding your head high is one that endangers you from finishing the race. God wants us to be made whole. He wants us to finish a good race. Self-hate is a very subtle but very common way Satan works to keep us from doing that. 

God wants us to hold our heads high because, no matter how weak we are, how flawed we are, how much we've sinnned and continue to make mistakes, He has made provision for mercy and a bounty of grace. Know your weaknesses. Admit them. Take them seriously, but don't let them cripple you. 

 

Second Chances

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6

Though we don't realize it, we have a tendency to create distance between us and God by doing things that come quite natural to us. We live in an imperfect world and have so many unhealthy tendencies. Many are subtle mannerisms and habits we learn by watching others. Others are merely our hearts talking. The journey of being a Jesus follower is meant to set us free from those tendencies, one step at a time. But we can't follow Jesus without laying down our junk- fully surrendering our thoughts, beliefs, possessions and lives. The real call in Christianity isn't to believe that Jesus existed and is God's son, but to have such great faith in His ability and His wisdom that we take His word over what we think. 

As I study Hosea, I realize that God used the prophets to express His feelings, plans and truths to His people. The things He says through them mesmerize me. They remind me that God does feel things, and it isn't always anger. Our great, strong, Creator is vast. We often underestimate just how much strength there is in kindness until we get a good view of who He is. 

Through the prophets, He reveals things that separate us from Him. And the fact that He would reveal some things that keep distance between us and Him speaks of His desire for intimacy with us. His willingness to tell us what hurts Him reveals His willingness to be vulnerable with us and His forgiving heart. How great is He who is the Giver of second chances. He gives us such a view of our sins to lead us to repentance to draw us nearer and make us freer. I can't think of anything more humbling. 

While studying Hosea, these are the things that stuck out as barriers and distance builders between us and God. 

1. We do harm to one another. The fact that God calls us to love and treat others well is reflective of His love for us all. He deeply cares about every one of us. Hosea 4:2

2. We think we have it all figured out and stop being teachable. One of God's big beefs with Israel was their pride and arrogance. They committed to figuring Him out, not growing closer to Him. He has repeatedly shown that we will never figure Him out..He just isn't that simple. And if we were, would we trust Him? If we knew all of His thoughts, would we be required to have faith? He wants us to follow Him with faith. When we assume we already have Him figured out, we cease being open to learning or seeing differently. And we cease having faith. Hosea 4:6, 7:10 

3. We let our hunger for sin guide/rule us. God gives us some things not to do because:

a. He has boundaries of what He will tolerate and b. Sin hurts the sinner and everyone around. He wants to protect us. When we don't heed his words, we're basically saying, "I will be my own God. I will decide what is best for me." Hosea 4:8. 7:13

4. We have priorities higher than God. In scripture, God often refers to idolatry as promiscuity and adultery. Idolatry is putting ANYTHING before God. It lies in the excuses we make to focus less on God and ultimately stop trusting and following Him. How do your other relationships go when you stop making an effort? Well, God doesn't like it ether and He is the one you and I need most. Hosea 5:4, 6:9 

5. We do not call on Him but look to others to rescue us. When we're in need of saving or help, whoever or whatever we run to first reveals what our trust is really in. This is one He really convicted me over. I had a nasty habit of looking for people to save me and it was ruining my relationships. It wasn't bring me closer to God either. But since I began to run to Him, my life has never been the same. He invites us to believe Him and since trust comes from a relationship, we have to pay attention to Him and invest in getting to know Him. Hosea 5:14, 7:7, 7:14

6. We do not repent. The whole reason He exposes sin is to offer an opportunity to repent. When we do not, we might as well outright say, "I don't care about you. I don't care what you say or how you feel or what you want." Now, do we build healthy human relationships with that attitude of indifference? No. And we it won't get us anywhere with God either. Hosea 7:13 

These are good things to examine our hearts and lives for continuously. They are reminders that God has feelings and is always willing to forgive when we repent. He doesn't speak this message to condemn but to invite us to turn back to Him. And I don't know about you but I am always in need of second chances. 

Peer No Pressure

She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; she will seek them but not find them. Then she will think I will go back to my former husband, for then it was better for me then. She does not recognize that it is I who gave her the grain, the new wine and the oil. I lavished silver and gold on her, for which they used for Baal. 

Hosea 1:7-8

Have you ever felt wronged or cheated? Have you ever been hurt by someone's disloyalty or unloving actions? God has too. And every second He loves us, He continues to risk further hurt. His love puts Him at risk because it is inevitable that we're all going to hurt Him. Yes, God is strong, but He feels things. Jesus taught about the vulnerable love of the Father when He died for us. Jesus reveals that true strength lies is the ability to be vulnerable, to love in risky ways. 

Keep in mind that vulnerability was His choice and He overcame the things done to Him. Vulnerability is for the courageous. 

We believers have all walked right past God with His arms wide open, looking for people who would meet our needs. And we've wondered what was wrong with us that others couldn't love us in ways we needed. We've put expectations and pressure on people to do things that they couldn't do, couldn't meet. But isn't that revealing of something about us, something that perhaps proves that we're more willing to be vulnerable with people than with God?

We were made to need community, yes. But God is ultimately the provider of all things, and we seem to miss that point by not going to Him first. It's so easy to forget all about God when we can find comfort in other humans or in our circumstances. We put our focus on this world and the things in it without considering that He is our life line, provider and the lover of our souls. He wants us to come to Him, to trust Him with our struggles and needs. But our natural human inclination is to look for people who will satisfy our needs instantly. When they do, we grow increasingly more entitled and impatient.  

It is a dangerous habit to chase after others to have our needs met. And it is one that makes us more resentful and harden our hearts. Truth be told, when we go to God first, we don't have be filled by anything or anyone else. We are then more fit to love like Jesus. People become enjoyable blessings and we want to bless them, not demand that they bless us. But when they do, we take joy in what they have to offer.  We don't need to beat them over the heads for something more. 

In my own experience, the more expectations there are the less grace there is. Anything that makes our hearts less like God's needs to be examined and changed. Any mindset that keeps us from going to God first, trusting Him most and staying tender before Him even when it is uncomfortable is one that threatens us in this life and the next. 

Imagine how much hurt we'd avoid if we would go to God before acting, speaking or responding. Our relationships benefit greatly when we're not expecting so much from others all the time. We would stop putting pressure on people to make us happy and start being a source of joy that gives back rather than taking all the time. And best of all, we would be as vulnerable with God as He is with us. We would be living out our purpose in communion with Him. 

One Interaction At A Time

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:2-3

My husband and I took the kids on a spontaneous and last minute trip to the beach this weekend. I'm not one to do big, spontaneous things; I like a plan. But my husband is wired different and it is important for me to recognize that at times, especially when this trip was his idea. As you can imagine, we all had plenty of opportunities to overreact. Over the course of three days my husband and I apologized to each other as well as to the kids more times than I could keep up with. It has taken us so long to learn that it's more important to treat one another well than to have our own ways. And we're still learning!

The more God heals and changes me, the more I realize how rare emotional and relational health is. Our society puts emphasis on money, success and morality but is it possible that we're missing the real lesson Jesus taught? 

Jesus was hard on Pharisees who thought they could earn their way to heaven by good behavior. So why then do we Christians adopt this very mindset? And how is it that we can stand under the pressure we put on ourselves and one another to "get it right"? 

From pointing fingers to carrying unforgiveness, anger and entitlement mindsets, we're making life harder for everyone. And yet we still insist that legislating morality is going to fix our problems because, maybe, just maybe we're a little bit too shallow to see deeper than skin. Not only do we make ourselves miserable with our self righteousness, but we've missed the importance Jesus put on healthy relationships. When we stop thinking its our job to change people, we can love them better. It is then that relationships flourish. Relationships are what Jesus emphasized. 

Laws don't change a person's heart. They might change actions but God looks at the heart. Actions mean nothing if the heart goes unchanged. Therefore, if we examine ourselves a little bit more closely, we might see that things have gotten this way partly because we've turned Christianity into behavioral modification. We've taken Jesus out of the equation except when we need something. We have failed to realize that what's inside of someone will eventually make its way out. 

Please don't read this as condemnation, but edification. I see these things because I once was guilty of them. And I continue to battle the mindsets behind our American Christian culture just like everyone else. 

How did Jesus bring change? Relationships. He interacted graciously and truthfully with everyone He met. He didn't manipulate. He didn't threaten. He didn't tie people to their past actions either but presented forgiveness and repentance where there was a hunger. He was a safe person for everyone. But He sure did scold those who thought they had it all together or who shamed others. 

Its time for the church to emphasize the importance of healthy interactions and relationships. God can handle hearts much better than we can. Relationships need to be a foundational teaching, more important than anything we learn in school. If we are going to impact the world, we have to do it the way Christ called us to, one interaction at a time.