WHO ARE YOU?

WHO ARE YOU?

When you stand and look in the mirror what kind of person do you see? Who are you?

Some of us see people we are really disappointed in. Some of us see people who “haven’t lived up to expectations.” Some of us see failures. Some of us see the unlovely and unloved. But that is not what God sees. Consider the following scripture passages, what they say about you and what God thinks of you when you become a believer.

· Col. 2:13 - You have been “made alive with Christ” and are no longer “dead in trespasses and sins.”

· Col. 3:1 – You have been “raised with Christ” and your life is now “hidden with Christ in God.”

· Heb. 10: 10 – You have been “made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Christ once for all.”

· Rom. 5:1 – You have been justified – completely forgiven and made righteous in the sight of God. (See also 5:19)

· Rom. 8:1 – You are free forever from condemnation.

· 1 Cor. 1:30 – You have been placed into Christ by God’s doing.

· 1 Cor. 2:12 – You have received the Spirit of God into your life that you might know the things freely given to you by God.

· 1 Cor. 2:16 – You have been given the mind of Christ.

· 1 Cor. 6: 19-20 – You have been bought with a price; You are not your own; You belong to God.

· 1 Thess. 1:4 & Jude 1:1 – You are loved by God, chosen by him and called by him.

You are a righteous, complete, accepted, beloved and chosen person. This is what God says is true of you and every believer. This is what Easter accomplished for you and me. We have been forever changed, our status before God forever altered by the work of Jesus Christ, his death, burial and resurrection. But some of us have a hard time accepting that. We see ourselves as something less than God sees us, something inferior. And that has a negative effect on what we can become because: What we believe about ourselves determines who we will become.

What You Believe Determines Who You Will Become –
Proverbs says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” That’s wisdom.

Tom Friends of The New York Times asked Coach Jimmy Johnson what he told his players before leading the Dallas Cowboys onto the field for the 1993 Super Bowl.

"I told them that if I laid a two-by-four across the floor, everybody there would walk across it and not fall, because our focus would be on walking the length of that board. But if I put that same board 10 stories high between two buildings, only a few would make it, because the focus would be on falling."

Johnson told his players not to focus on the crowd, the media, or the possibility of falling, but to focus on each play of the game as if it were a good practice session. The Cowboys won the game 52-7.[1]

So if a Christian sees himself – focuses on himself - as unholy, unlovable, unworthy and incompetent, what kind of man or woman is he/she going to be?

Depressed, insecure, resentful and angry. Why? Because life for a defeated Christian feels like a game you can’t win, a role where you can never remember all the lines, a set of expectations that are impossible to meet. It feels like a two-by-four you have to cross that’s ten stories high. Jesus didn’t rise from the dead to leave us feeling like that!

Depressed people don’t dream dreams. Insecure people won’t take risks. Angry people can’t build lasting friendships.

But what happens to a man or woman who begins to believe in his worth, his value, his competence, and his goodness? That man or woman becomes a world changer. That person will invest himself in life, in dreams that change things and make life better for everybody.

So let me ask it this way: What does God think of you? Is he proud of you? Does he love you? Who are you?