Find Your Identity
Be in Health has spent the last 30+ years studying the Bible, mankind, and the way God designed us. Using these insights we have helped tens of thousands of people to rediscover their purpose and to reclaim their life so that they can walk in wholeness and health in their spirit, soul, and body. Today Pastor Scott takes us on a journey to discover what might be keeping us from finding our identity and how to recover ourselves. Many of us have been fed a distorted image of what we should look like, act like, and even perform like. We’ve spent our lives trying to conform ourselves to an impossible standard. No matter how hard we try, it never seems to be good enough. Pastor Scott Harper addresses this very real struggle that most of us face on a daily basis, and offers real solutions to help you to find your identity in Christ.
Funhouse Mirrors
By Pastor Scott Harper
I may be telling my age when I talk about funhouse mirrors, but how many of you remember walking into a funhouse and seeing yourself in the mirrors? Each mirror distorted how you see yourself. It was funny to see our heads as this gigantic head on a tiny body or the mirror that made us super tall and skinny, or short and round. We always had a great time laughing about it with ourselves and with our friends.
So what?
You may be asking, “What do funhouse mirrors have to do with anything?” They are more real than you may realize.
Let me ask you this, what do you see when you look in the mirror? Do you stumble into the bathroom after you wake up and glance into the mirror? Do you say, “Good Morning, you gorgeous hunk of dust.” Or do you start to see the areas that you don’t like? Maybe you suck in your gut and puff up your chest, or stand up on your tippy-toes to stretch out your backside so you look taller or thinner.
A familiar image
There is something familiar about funhouse mirrors. They seem to give us a glimpse into the tools of Satan – how he manipulates the way we see ourselves through unloving and even rejection. It highlights those areas that we may already be uncomfortable about. I was never a tall kid, but looking in the mirror, I always perceived myself as shorter than I was in real life. I talk to people who are beautiful, but the “funhouse” mirrors of unloving distort what they see and exaggerate weight, height, blemishes until they start to believe the lie and can’t see their true image.
The Trap
After we buy into the lie of unloving and what we see in the “funhouse mirrors,” we almost kill ourselves with diets, exercise, supplements, treatments, and so on. This is all an attempt to change our distorted view into the unrealistic image of what we think we are supposed to look like. What we have next is a takeover of discontentment in who we are and how God created us. We may start to accuse God of making a mistake because we don’t line up to what? Someone we saw on TV or in a magazine at the checkout line? We have bought the “funhouse” mirror lie.
This isn’t only about looks and weight. Those same “funhouse” mirrors distort our perception of our spiritual walk, our relationships, our businesses, and so much more. We get so caught up in what we think people think of us. As a result, we try to morph ourselves into what we think might be acceptable to them. Before long, we are trying to live in a world where we can never measure up.
Conforming to the wrong image
We may start to change who we are, our looks, our morals, our integrity, solely based on what we thought we saw in the “funhouse” mirror. Perhaps we start to believe that if we change, people will begin to like and accept us. We believe that if we are acceptable to others, then we’ll be able to accept ourselves.
This issue is something every one of us struggles with at one level or another. We all have bought some part of the lie that the “funhouse” mirror helps sell for the enemy. I am not against someone bettering their lifestyle, weight, activity level, or bettering their business or relationships. I am against someone doing anything for the wrong reasons; being driven by the wrong spirit.
How God sees you
Throughout scripture, God reminds us how precious we each are. Take Psalm 139, for example – we are fearfully and wonderfully made and marvelous are God’s works – that is us. Let’s not forget in verses 17 and 18; how often his thoughts are about us, more than the number of the sand.
I will praise thee; for I am fearfully [and] wonderfully made: marvellous [are] thy works; and [that] my soul knoweth right well. Psalm 139:14 KJV
How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! 18 [If] I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee. Psalm 139: 17-18 KJV
Need more?
In Matthew 10, Jesus talks about how, if His Father knows when a sparrow falls to the ground, how much more valuable are we than a sparrow? He knows the very number of hairs on our head, that’s a massively big deal. Not to mention that we are the “apple of His eye.” We are always at the center of his attention, exactly the way we are.
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. 30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. Matthew 10:29-31 KJV
An inaccurate reflection
The real evil of these “funhouse” mirrors that we are talking about is, we start to set our identity on an inaccurate reflection of who we are, right now, and not based on how God the Father sees us. He created each of us unique, different, and specific for who He sees us as – His sons and daughters.
John 3:16, we all know this. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” That was for each of us, in our sins, in our mistakes, just how He made us. The only thing He asks us to change as His sons and daughters is simple, follow Him and obey his commandments. The number one commandment is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself.
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this [is] the first commandment. 31 And the second [is] like, [namely] this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. Mark 12:30-31 KJV
It’s time to break a few “mirrors”
Many of us have been staring at the distorted image that the enemy has shown us for so long, we accepted it as reality. I challenge us all: maybe it’s time for us to ignore superstition and break a few “mirrors.” It may be scary at first. You may be shocked at the difference of what you thought you looked like through the eyes of unloving and rejection.
How do we break the image cycle? Simple, repent. Call out to the Father, say, “Father, I repent for allowing myself to be deceived by unloving and rejection in how I see myself. I repent for not seeing myself as your son or daughter, created and formed in your image. Please forgive me and help me to see myself and love myself, as you love me.
Find your identity
Instead of mirroring ourselves in the image of other people, we should mirror who we are, based on what God’s Word says about us – “I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works.” Each of us are fearfully and wonderfully made. Each of us are marvelous works of dust that He calls his own.
Accept that you are precious in His sight, just how He made you.
Pastor Scott Harper
P.S. How many of you started singing?
Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Red, brown, yellow
Black and white
They are precious in His sight
Jesus loves the little children
Of the world
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Do you want to learn more about how to find your identity? These resources will be helpful to you.
Who Am I? – A Teaching by Dr. Henry W. Wright
God’s Character & Who Am I In It? – A Teaching by Pastor Scott Harper
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