How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Psalm 139:17

In Matthew 16:15, Jesus asks His disciples who people are saying that He is. They reply that people are saying “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”. Then He asks them, “¹⁵ “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”. Simon Peter responds appropriately, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”.

That is absolutely a great question for us to ask ourselves “who do we say that He is”. It is appropriate to examine our own hearts and see who He is to us. The answer will change, sometimes He will be our rescuer, sometimes our strength, other times our healer, depending on the circumstances in our life. If we are followers of Jesus Christ, He will always be our Savior as well.

But another great question for us to ask is who do I say that I am?

Another area of self examination that is more than appropriate is to examine what we are saying about ourselves.

Do we think of ourselves as failures? Do we think there are areas in our lives that we will never have victory over? Do we say things like “I’ll always be over weight”, “I’ll never be able to stop smoking”, “I can’t speak in front of the church”, “I’ll never be able to control my eating”, “I can’t tell people about Jesus”.

What does Philippians 4:13 say? “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”. Does that mean some things? No, It means anything that He would will for us. Would it be God’s will that we conquer our eating disorders, addictions, insecurities, lack of confidence? Of course it would. It would bring Him glory and be obedient to what He asks of us.

Gluttony, destruction of the temple and residence of the Holy Spirit, resisting the leading of the Holy Spirit because of a lack of confidence or insecurities, are not God’s will for our lives.

No matte the circumstances we are called to be strong in the Lord. “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Ephesians 6:10”.

If God is calling you to something, He has already equipped you to do it.

You have the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of you and can do anything that God calls you to. You just have to be willing to say Yes Lord.

I pray that today we would rid ourselves of self defeating attitudes and feelings. I pray that we would take those thoughts captive (We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5) and hand them over to our Heavenly Father who created us in His image (So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27) for specific purposes that He planned for us (“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10) to do for Him. We are awesome creations with specific purposes and the power of the Holy Spirit inside us, we can do anything He is calling us to do and mean so much more to Him and the advancement of the Gospel, than we think or can even imagine. Let’s think of ourselves the way that God does, beloved and created in His image.

If you are not a follower of Jesus Christ and have a defeatist attitude about your abilities, yourself or if God can even use you, God desires that you that you would overcome those thoughts and feelings and that you would have confidence in all these areas. But more than that He desires that you would have a personal relationship with Him and that He could call you His child (See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 1 John 3:10). I pray that you would go to our Life Preserver page (https://forgiven-n-loved.com/life-preserver/) and pray the prayer that is outlined there. If you do, you will find a relationship and a love greater than anything you have ever known. Please pray that prayer and once you have, please reach out to me and let me know so that I can be in prayer for you.

Luv Ya!