Since the age of six, our family had attended church regularly. I became a christian at a young age and had it engrained in me that I am a sinner and that is why I needed Jesus. While yes, this is true, we are sinners, we have a need for Jesus because we will never be good enough to enter heaven on our own, but it is not how I should have continued to identify myself. A sinner, implies you are bound by sin, you are held captive by your sinful nature. Jesus broke those chains for us, we are free because of him. We are empowered by Him to resist temptation. When we choose to accept Jesus we are a new creation in Christ, we take on His identity. His identity is that of perfect royalty. That is how God the Father sees us now. Accepting Christ as our savior is the first step in following Jesus, accepting who we are in Christ pushes us to grow in who He is. Isn't it just like the great deceiver to use a word that brings us to the knowledge that we need christ and sabotage the growth by using it as a stumbling block in our lives.
When I was in school, there was a required class that was called Professional Development. I always thought of it as the feel good class because the premise of it was to focus on the positives of who we are and give us tools to make achieving goals possible. It was where I discovered just how unimpressed I was with my life achievements because they were never good enough to write down on our "things I am most proud of" list. I did not get much out of that class because I was so wrapped up in who I was not, how short I fell in all aspects of life. Now, I look back and can align what we learned in that class to fit into my walk with Christ. In that class we had an ungraded task we were supposed to do. By the end of the term we were to have a list of positive affirmations that we were to focus on daily. Positive affirmations are statements like:
"I am a kind person who puts others first"
"I am a financially stable person"
"I am a marathon runner"
They are stated as truths about yourself and in turn allow you the freedom to believe you are all these things... what you believe is what you will become. Take the marathon runner statement, you may not be one but continuing to focus on this empowers you to freely become what you already say you are. It's like a fake it till you make it mentality. It makes goals attainable. We have these as christians as well. Graham Cooke has an amazing clip on youtube that would literally pump. you. up. It is full of positive affirmations that align with who we are as followers of Jesus. I challenge anyone to listen to it each morning and not have a new outlook on who they are. We are not sinners anymore, we are saints, accept it and grow in it. You will not be able to stray from who you are, the truth will set you free.
Thetruthaboutyou<--click here
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