You are Beautiful

October 4th, 2017

you-are-beautiful

You are beautiful! Beauty is what radiates from inside of you, and because as a Christian you are a new creation in Christ, you radiate His presence from your face! The more you know who you are, the more you will radiate.

It doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside. Even if you have a terrible accident, you can still be beautiful because your eyes reflect your soul, and in the expression of your face there is beauty.

We can also take care of our bodies: eat more fruits and vegetables, drink more water, exercise, and get the right amount of sleep. When we take care of our bodies–showering and grooming ourselves–we put forward our best selves, even on the exterior. Every woman has her own unique beauty.

I-am-beautiful

God chose your face, your hair color, and your body structure before the beginning of time, and He made no mistakes. Accept your outer body, and make the best of it. Even your outer body is beautiful because you were made by God. You are a masterpiece of artistry. Every freckle is right where it’s supposed to be. Stop trying to measure up to someone else’s appearance. You are beautiful just the way you are right now.

The Song of Solomon is an interaction between a husband and his wife, but it is also symbolic of Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:32). When the man speaks to his wife, this is Christ speaking to us: “You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.” (Song of Solomon 4:7 ESV) Christ did not make a mistake when He created us. Let’s stop insulting God by not accepting ourselves just the way He made us.

you-are-beautiful-2

Here is a poem I wrote recently as I was learning to accept that it doesn’t matter if other people insult your physical appearance. I know many Christian women whose husbands say they are fat and they are not attractive. They feel crushed inward and are sad. I want to lift them up right now. I know men with skinny wives who are continuously pointing out the flaws, and these women don’t feel wanted either. Please know that these men are wrong, that they are comparing their wives to airbrushed models that don’t eat and have gotten plastic surgery. These are fake people. You are real. You are beautiful. God created you and made no mistakes. You have no flaw!

You are Beautiful (Haiku)

Delight in God’s eyes
He thought you up before time
He says, “You are Mine.”

God bestows His child
With honor and dignity
You are beautiful

knowing-how-beautiful-you-are

The closer we draw to Christ, the more beautiful we become, because we radiate that supernatural beauty. But even in our worst moments, we are beautiful because God created us and does not make mistakes. “I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well.” Psalm 139:14 ESV

Here is a song you can listen to, so that you can understand how beautiful you are to God. Just let it sink in:

If you don’t want to miss any of these posts from the series “31 Days to Regaining Your Identity,” why not sign up for my free monthly newsletter below, and follow my prayer page on Facebook.

you-are-a-masterpiece

 

My daughter and I created the artwork for this series from the course {aff} “You are a Masterpiece” by Alicia Gratehouse. If you love to do art and are discovering who you are in Christ, this is a great art course for you!

You are Forgiven

October 3rd, 2017

you-are-forgiven

If you are a child of God, you are forgiven. Jesus died on the cross for your sins so that you could be set free from condemnation. He justified you before God, and all of your sins were nailed to the cross: past, present, and future.

If you accidentally sin, you can confess your sins to God and ask Him to help you overcome the sin (I John 1:9). God will set you free from each sin, either instantly or over the years as you are transformed into the image of Christ. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ (Romans 8:1).

As soon as you find out that you’ve sinned, you can ask God’s forgiveness, and He forgives your sin as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).

If you have a vague sense of condemnation, this is not from God but from the enemy. True conviction from the Lord is specific, and when you confess it, it’s gone! You feel fresh and clean.

You can feel fresh and clean right now. There is never a reason to feel defeated. We are more than conquerors in Christ (Romans 8:37).

forgiven-by-God

If someone is trying to make you feel condemned, they are doing the work of the enemy. Don’t live under their oppression, but let them own their own sin of being condemning. Put up your shield of faith and don’t let their words of death go into you and wound you. God does not slice into us and whip us and harm us. If you are feeling beaten down, this is the enemy and not God.

joy-and-peace

Here is another blog post explaining the difference between a rebuke and an accusation, and why we should not allow ourselves to feel defeated: How Do You Overcome Accusation?

And if you need to know the difference between true guilt and false guilt, here is another helpful article: True Guilt and False Guilt

If you don’t want to miss any of these posts from the series “31 Days to Regaining Your Identity,” why not sign up for my free monthly newsletter below, and follow my prayer page on Facebook.

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My daughter and I created the artwork for this series from the course {aff} “You are a Masterpiece” by Alicia Gratehouse. If you love to do art and are discovering who you are in Christ, this is a great art course for you!

You are Loved

October 2nd, 2017

you-are-loved

You are loved by God! God thought you up before the beginning of time, with all your strengths and frailties. He knew you and called you to be His before the beginning of time (Psalm 139). God the Father loved you so much He sent His Son (John 3:16), and Jesus gave His life for you on the cross and paid the price of all the sin you would ever commit so that He could have a relationship with you. You are pretty special to God, you are unique, and He made you exactly the way He intended you to be. You are accepted and loved!

Don’t go seeking humans to love you with the love that only Jesus can offer. If you ask the Lord to fill you with His love, He will answer you. In Ephesians 3:17-18, Paul prays that we may all experience the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ. The word in the original Greek for “know” is an experiential knowledge, since there is a different word for head knowledge.

If you seek acceptance from others, if your husband seems to have contempt for you rather than love, if your closest friends betray you, if your family members disown you–none of these matters if you can access the love of Jesus and understand how loved and valued you are to His kingdom. Flawed people are born selfish, and the best of Christians fights selfishness daily. There is no way you will ever be loved by a human the way that Jesus can love you.

love-is-a-mess

Romans 5:5 says that God’s love has been poured out into out hearts, and how can that mean a cognitive understanding? No, it’s something that touches the heart and that changes who we are. ALL of the Christian life is miraculous, from true salvation that brings transformation, to the love that we can experience, to the peace that passes understanding in difficult situations.

love-art

If you have been abused, raped, neglected, or hurt in any way by others, understand that Christ was inside of you and experienced all your pain with you. He knows you like no one else can!

No matter what you’ve done, He forgives you when you come to Him, and He wipes you clean and sees you in a beautiful light. God created you just the way He wanted you and accepts you just the way you are, with all your flaws. You are loved.

People who have never been through hardship and had a great family life growing up might think that they understand the love of God. But sometimes it’s the broken who reach upward for strength that are filled supernaturally by His Spirit.

loved-by-God

“Is it not likely that many healthy, well-adjusted, productive adults from self-assured families mistake their own natural sense of well-being for the love of God, and are therefore worse off spiritually than the broken person who, beyond all expectation, has tasted the love of God by the power of the Holy Spirit?” – John Piper

If you need to experience the love of God, ask that God would remove any obstacle that is standing in the way of you truly having that love wash over you. Here is one of my favorite songs about the love of God: O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus.

I hope you know that you are loved!

If you don’t want to miss any of these posts from the series “31 Days to Regaining Your Identity,” why not sign up for my free monthly newsletter below, and follow my prayer page on Facebook.

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My daughter and I created the artwork for this series from the course {aff} “You are a Masterpiece” by Alicia Gratehouse. If you love to do art and are discovering who you are in Christ, this is a great art course for you!

You are Accepted

October 1st, 2017

you-are-accepted

You are accepted! It doesn’t matter who else accepts you because Jesus Himself accepts you. Romans 15:7 says, “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” Jesus accepts us with all our flaws and frailties. He actually gave us our weaknesses so that God’s power might be made manifest in us because–believe it or not–God’s power shows the most in our lives through our weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:9).

This doesn’t mean that we should purposely sin and hurt Christ. Of course not! But if we sin, we can immediately go to God and ask for forgiveness, and it’s gone. Christ accepts you for who you are RIGHT NOW, not who you are going to be when you are dead, after you are glorified. Don’t you see? You are fully accepted and loved by God, and you can rest in that acceptance and stop striving to be good enough.

We as women tend to derive our worth from how other people view us. How people perceive us does not define who we are. God defines who we are, and if He says we are accepted, then we are accepted!

If other people have expectations of you that are impossible for you to meet, they will always be disappointed with you. But that is THEIR problem. Shake yourself free from their expectations and thrive under God’s acceptance.

you-are-a-masterpiece

We believe that maybe if we perform everything to perfection, we will be accepted by others.

But God does not expect from us more than we can do. He is fully aware that we are but dust.

You don’t have to be forced to change your personality just because someone wants you to be just like them. John the Baptist, for example, was not gracious, but God created him that way and fully accepted and was pleased with him. God created him for a specific purpose that required him to be more straightforward than most people.

Peter the disciple was brash. Just because he acted without thinking doesn’t make him evil. God purposely created Peter to be brash. Sure, he could learn to consult other people for wisdom, but being a man of action is who he was. He got things done because he could think quickly. He didn’t have to sit down and beat himself up because of who God created him to be. And yet we as women do this all the time.

christ-accepted-you

In the same way, you do not need to change everything about yourself to meet with the acceptance of the people around you. Yes, you can ask God to remove sin, but if it’s just a personality difference, God loves who you are because He purposely made you that way. How sad that we never accept ourselves for who we are so that we can become fully all that God has called us to be!

I spontaneously wrote a poem one day to encapsulate the experience I had with God when I felt accepted for the first time. After striving for years to please God, and hearing so many times that I was never good enough, my sister finally prayed with me over the phone, that God would remove whatever was standing in the way to experience God’s love and acceptance:

I am Accepted
I am accepted
God is pleased with me
No more striving
I am complete
God delights in me
I am beautiful
Loved

Waves of love
Wash over me
Every cell of my being
Is accepted
I am at rest
I am complete
Loved

You can experience God’s acceptance, too. Take God at His Word, and believe the Scriptures that never lie, and don’t feel like you have to measure up to anyone else’s expectations of who they think you need to be. If you have over-performed for years, and people nit-pick and criticize everything you do, let their words slide right off. Don’t be hurt. The only person you need to be accepted by is Christ! You are accepted!

If you don’t want to miss any of these posts from the series “31 Days to Regaining Your Identity,” why not sign up for my free monthly newsletter below, and follow my prayer page on Facebook.

you-are-a-masterpiece

 

My daughter and I created the artwork for this series from the course {aff} “You are a Masterpiece” by Alicia Gratehouse. If you love to do art and are discovering who you are in Christ, this is a great art course for you!