Friday, September 10
help me live like this.
singly His.undivided heart.
wholly devoted.
to love you as i should, i must worship God as Creator.
to love you as i should, i must worship God as Sovereign.
to love you as i should, i must worship God as Saviour.
then we can love people the way God loves them.
she showed me what it means to put others interest before her own. love that gives. sacrifices.
who you tell yourself you are has a very powerful impact on the way you deal with the big and small issues of daily life. in the same way, where you find your identity will have everything to do with how you respond to the hard work of relationships with others. either i get my identity vertically, out of my sense of who God is and who he has made me in Christ, or i will seek to get my identity horizontally, out of my circumstances, relationships, and successes. when we live out of a sense of who we are in Christ, we live our lives based on all we have been given by Christ. this keeps us from seeking to get those things from the people and situations around us. much of the disappointment and heartache we experience is the result of our attempts to get something from relationships that we already have in Christ. no human being was ever meant to be the source of personal joy and contentment for someone else. your spouse, your friends, and your children cannot be the sources of your identity. only when i have sought my identity in the proper place am i able to put you in the proper place as well. when i relate to you knowing that i am God's child and the recipient of his grace, i am able to serve and love you. however if i am seeking to get identity from you, i will watch you too closely, listen to you too intently, and need you too fundamentally. i will ride the roller coaster of your best and worst moments and everything in between. and because i am watching you too closely, i will become acutely aware of your weaknesses and failures. i will become overly critical, frustrated, disappointed, hopeless, and angry. i will be angry not because you are a sinner, but because you have failed to deliver the one thing i seek from you: identity.
-adapted from relationships a mess worth making
Lord, help me find my identity in You and You only.
help me to trust.