I talk about how I need to see myself as God sees me. Lately I've been spending way too much time looking at myself. My brokenness. My issues. My mistakes. My past. I've been feeling so condemned and so sad about anything. "I'm messed up." "I'm not good enough." I tell myself over and over again when I focus on myself. I even tell myself: "Look at yourself the way God sees you." My response: "Yeah! But you're still messed up! It don't matter!!" Turn your eyes to Jesus. When we turn our eyes to Jesus, we see his grace and mercy. We can get to know him and borrow his eyes to view ourselves.
We cannot look at ourselves the way God sees us until we turn our eyes on Him.
Only when we turn our eyes on God can we give ourselves the love and mercy He gives us. When we focus on ourselves, our problems seem to get bigger and bigger while our God seems to get smaller and smaller. LIE! Our problems in fact our not smaller than our God. They are exponentially infinitely smaller! Imagine 2 objects. As you stare at object A, it comes into focus, every little detail, every ounce of beauty, every minute imperfection. As all this comes into view, object B gets smaller, every detail fades into a fuzzy mess, every beautiful piece mushes in with the rest. Eventually your vision narrows and object B fades out of view.
If we focus on our problems and ourselves, we find every little detail. We find minute bits of beauty, every imperfection comes into view and sticks out like a sore thumb. God becomes smaller, he fades into a fuzzy mess, his beauty mushes into nothing as he fades out of view. Now, we have made our problem bigger than our God. LIE!
BUT!!
If we focus on our God, we find every little detail. We find all his beauty. We find his love. His grace. His mercy. His compassion for us. Every imperfection we found in ourselves, we find as a perfection in Him. His glory becomes so big and bright and clear, while our problems fade into a dim fuzziness. The imperfections aren't as big. And now, we have mad our God bigger than our problems. TRUTH!
God is bigger than your problems!!
That's hard to accept, understand and believe if our eyes our turned towards ourselves or our problems.
Once we turn our eyes towards our God, we find our help in Him, we learn to trust Him, we find His perfect love, we find his everlasting grace, we find his never-ending mercy. We find these things and begin to understand God more. We can then look at ourselves through God's eyes and begin to see ourselves as God sees us:
Beautiful
Worthy
Lovable
His child
Christ's friend.
Justified
Accepted
Saint
Adopted
Redeemed
Forgiven
Compete
Free
Secure
Citizen of heaven
Chosen
His artwork
Powerful
Mighty warrior
Pure
Holy
Turn your eyes on God. He will rescue you, comfort you, and help you to see yourself the way He sees you.
Wisdom beyond your years my friend! This is a great lesson to learn!!!
ReplyDeleteI would encourage you to practice "self compassion." Think about how Jesus, the Good Shepherd would treat you if he was with you in person. He would have compassion, mercy, unconditionally love, grace, forgiveness, tenderness.... Have that compassion with yourself. Show yourself some grace.
Another thing: You have an unhealthy view of depravity. You see yourself far worse than everyone else. We as humans are all sinful, flawed, needy.... but you don't get to be more messed up than the rest of us! Start seeing yourself in the same boat as your peers, parents, mentors, and friends. We are all sheep gone astray. But we all have a Good Shepherd that comes to lay down his life for us! You are flawed, BUT you are MORE LOVED THAN YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE-- at the same time. If you are only seeing your depravity-- you will be condemned. If you focus on being loved without seeing your great need, you will grow prideful and arrogant, works righteous. The gospel is to see yourself flawd and loved AT THE SAME TIME! That is the gospel at the center!
Love to you my Timothy.