Defined

“So God has given us both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can take new courage, for we can hold on to his promises with confidence.” Hebrews 6:18

She leaves her big house filled with the nicest stuff you could afford, she gets in her nice big car, and she heads to a job she has built from scratch. Any and everyone who sees her admires how well she is put together and that has always been her goal. To be seen as someone who is the most successful in her career, most liked, best dressed, and even thought of as a great Christian woman. She takes pride in her appearance, even her children look as though they have the best of everything. She thrives on praise and compliments, so much she even surrounds herself with those who will give it to her.  

But it is not until you open her up that you see the inside of her and see nothing but broken pieces. Each piece has a word on it, from abuse, to premarital sex, to drugs, insecurity, bitterness, being made fun of, belittled, disrespected, etc. The deeper you look the more you see the root of it all and it is two words that have been carved behind all those broken pieces. They are “Praise and Influence.” She sought out to be praised by others for all her worldly accomplishments that she allowed the world and Satan to influence her thoughts, actions, and words. She was so under the influence of Satan that he had her convinced that without the materialistic things she was nothing, thus the big house, big car, smooth talk, and the most money of her friends and family. Because she had lived under the control of these two words for so long she new nothing different and thought it was normal, even though she was still so unhappy. She was bound up in the chains of these words instead of being free, living in the love and under the influence of Jesus Christ. Even though she would claim that she allowed God to be ruler of her life. When confronted she would argue because those two words were written deep within her.

We all have different words written within us and all our broken pieces are a result of something different.  Maybe for some of us it is receiving praise, maybe it is attention, control, affection, acceptance, love, power, appearance, and/or money. Maybe it is that desperate desire to understand why things happened the way they did, or why we have so much hate towards those who hurt us. Maybe it is all of the above. But for many of us we have allowed these words to have control over our lives, we have allowed Satan to influence us in believing we cannot function without them, and that we are nobodies, and that we should hate those who hurt us badly. Some of us like her are so eaten up with them and have lived with them for so long that we don’t know how to live in freedom or know anything different. We even become defensive and hardened when confronted about them.

But there is some great news, we can live in freedom. We can become more open to accountability and help when we allow God’s word to be our influence, when we stop listening to Satan and start listening to God. When we stop caring about what others think and start caring about what God thinks.  We have to allow Jesus to come in and erase those words and put new words within us. We have to let go of our insecurities and start clinging to the securities of Jesus Christ. We have to strip off the false appearances and start letting others see the stitching and patching of Jesus where we were broken and torn. And for the love of the One who created us we have to start accepting His praises, His love, His attention, and affection. We have to let Him be in control, and have all the power. How do we do it? By saying out allowed and to Satan that we are going to live by what we know! And we know that Jesus will meet us where we are and He will always do His part. We know He will bring healing, freedom, and renewal. And we know, we know, we know that we are loved, clothed in His righteousness, beautiful, and covered in His blood! 

Jesus remove the words we have allowed to define us and replace them with Your words of love. Amen