Your daily goal:
Philippians 3:14 “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
(Monday-Friday, from my daily study time, I will write a short thought for that day which I pray God will use to motivate you to ‘GO’ for that day. Your objective is simple…to GO…to GO OUT and share the love of Christ with someone in that day….to GO and bear fruit …to be light to the world.)
Today’s Daily Light
Taking from… The Search For Significance..by R. McGee
Continuing with ‘Shame’. (I Am What I Am. I Cannot Change. I Am Hopeless.)
Premise Question: Is there anything about your life (past acts, something done to you, anything about your appearance) that you believe makes it impossible for you to experience consistent happiness, peace, or joy?
When we base our self-worth on past failures, dissatisfaction with personal appearance, or bad habits, we often develop a fourth false belief: I am what I am. I cannot change. I am hopeless. This lie blinds people to the hopeless pessimism associated with poor self-esteem.
If we excuse our failures with an attitude of hopelessness, too often our personality can become glued to the failures. Our self-image becomes no more than a reflection of our past.
Too often our self-image rests solely on an evaluation of our past behavior, being measured only through a memory. Day after day, year after year, we tend to build our personalities on the rubble of yesterday’s personal disappointments.
Perhaps there is some security in accepting ourselves as much less than we can become. That minimizes the risk of failure. Certainly, if we expect little from ourselves, we will seldom be disappointed!
But nothing forces us to remain the mold of the past. By the grace of and power of God, we can change? We can persevere and overcome! No one forces us to keep shifting our feet in the muck of old failures. We can dare to accept the challenge of building a new life.
What we must do is renew our minds…shift our minds to a new perspective, not just new efforts based on old, pessimistic attitudes. We need to develop a new self-concept based on the unconditional love and acceptance of God. Both past failures and God’s unconditional love are realities, but the question is which one will we value more. If we continue to value failures, we will continue to be absorbed in self-pity. Instead, we need to be honest. We need someone we can talk to openly so that we can express our feelings without the fear of being rejected. We also need to be encouraged to study and apply the truths of God’s Word. As we persist in this process, we sense self-worth, and eventually experience change in every area of our life: goals, relationships, and our outlook.
Dr. Paul Tournier once compared life to a man hanging from a trapeze. The trapeze bar was the man’s security, his pattern of existence, his lifestyle. Then God swung another trapeze into the man’s view, and he faced a perplexing dilemma. Should he relinquish his past? Should he reach for the new bar? The moment of truth came, Dr. Tournier explained, when the man realized that to grab the new bar, he must release the old one. (Con’t tomorrow)
The truth that I am deeply loved, fully pleasing, and totally accepted by the God of the universe is the trapeze bar that not only we hold on to…but the reality of the Gospel is that ‘it’ (HE) holds on to us!!!!!
Father…I know from my past failures…experiences of pain…about the reality that You can rebuild and renew us…through the power of Your spirit which lives inside us. I know that You alone are that eternal trapeze bar that holds me/us in Your firm grip and nothing can take me/us out of Your hands. I KNOW this is true..and ‘in’ this truth…I stand. Amen
Let There Be Light 