Feel Defeated? Looking for Love? Need a Victory?

Who are you?  No, really answer the question for yourself.

Do you identify yourself by your occupation?  I’m a computer technologist, teacher, supervisor, administrative assistant, mailman, telemarketer, retail salesperson, etc.

Do you identify yourself by your relationships?  I’m the wife of my man, mother of #1 and #2, daughter to J and E, or sister to J.

Is your identity about what you do in your spare time? reader, movie watcher, napper, painter, writer, internet surfer, an exercise buff, volunteer, or teacher at Sunday School.

Do you sometimes even identify yourself by what you feel are your weaknesses?  I’m an alcoholic, recovering drug addict, smoker, lazy, or critical.  Maybe you see yourself as a failure because everything you attempt to do falls apart or never gets off the ground.  Or so you think.

How about accomplishments?  I have a Master’s Degree in Business (not me), own my on company, my children are great, finished college, walked 10 miles today (I wish), read the Bible through 5 times, or volunteer 2 or 3 days a week.

How about emotions?  I feel unhappy, happy, sad, hurt, lost, alone, abandoned, angry, or bitter.

Most of the time when asked “who are you?”or “tell me about yourself” we immediately think of all the things we do and the people we do for.

Who are you on the inside, the inner you, the real you, the one without all the stuff you do?  Take away all that and who is left?

Ephesians 3:16-21 God is wonderful and glorious.  I pray that his Spirit will make you become strong followers and that Christ will live in your hearts because of your faith.  Stand firm and be deeply rooted in his love.  I pray that you and all of God’s people will understand what is called wide or long or high or deep.  I want you to know all about Christ’s love, although it is too wonderful to be measured.  Then your lives will be filled with all that God is.  I pray that Christ Jesus and the church will forever bring praise to God.  His power at work in us can do far more than we dare ask or imagine.  Amen. (CEV)

According to God’s Word Christ Jesus and the Father love you more than you could possibly wrap your mind around.  His Spirit in you as a believer gives you the fullness of God in your spirit.  His power at work in you can do far more than you dare ask or imagine.

It’s hard to realize we have such a great love and power living inside us because we live such defeated lives as believers.  The best thing spiritually that ever happened to me, other than my wonderful salvation, was that I began to understand who I am, the true and real me, separated from the me that I had perceived myself to be.  I saw myself through the eyes of people, through my emotions and through my earthly, and fleshly desires.  This was a me I didn’t like, a me I didn’t want to be, a me who wore a different mask for each person or circumstance.  But it was the me that I had always thought I was, so I lived a life of exhaustion, pleasing others, striving to do better and then failing. Ugh!

Christ in me is who I am.  I am transformed by His Spirit in me because the old spirit was replaced with Jesus.  As a believer in Christ you have this same Spirit, power, and unmeasured love inside you.  Start living out of who you really are and then do out of who you really are, too.

There is freedom in Christ: Galatians 5:1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.