My Devotion
My Heart
It Really is a Gift
For
it is by grace you have been saved through faith—and this not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in
advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:8-10
To
get to who we really are we have to get past what we think we are not or the
failures that have become our definition. We have been conditioned
subconsciously by those conditioning us and by our own submission to be
conditioned. We are who we are by culture and unspoken
expectations. Like Pavlov’s dog who became conditioned to be hungry at
the sound of a bell. Things happen to make us perform or to stop at the
sound as small as a sigh or the raising of an eyebrow. We stay in a state
of confusion most of the time because we receive so many mixed signals from our
family, friends, and co-workers. Many of us have an ingrained need to be
pleasing to everyone in our life. If one person seems to be disappointed,
hurt, and/or mad at us or about us it sends us into a fit of some sort to fix
that person’s problem with us. People-pleasers cannot stand to have
anyone upset or have any ill feeling toward their actions, appearance, or
speech.
I
heard a podcast of Max Lucado a few minutes ago. He was talking about how
we are known by others. He was making specific notice to how we are
guilty of associating a person with his or her past mistakes, failures, or
addictions without even really thinking about. He was pointing out how
the world sees us for what we have done or not done even in common everyday
conversations… “I saw Suzie at the grocery store, you know Suzie, she just
can’t keep a job” …Remember Tom, he had that affair and devastated his wife and
family. Joe the alcoholic... Sometimes I feel like even though it isn’t
spoken out loud (at least to me anyway) that people still associate me with my
past mistakes and failures. No matter how hard I try to put it all behind
me it just never goes away.
People
who thrive on pleasing others all the time have lost their own self-worth in
what other people think of them. Their first thought in every situation
is, “What would people say?” “What would people think?” It starts
early and takes a very long time to break the cycle. It spills over into
the spiritual life as well. People-pleasers don’t find freedom in God’s
love and mercy, no matter how many times they see it in the Bible they don’t
receive those words of grace and mercy are applied to them. They really
believe that what they do and how much they serve is their path to God to
gaining His favor, His grace, His mercy, and even more His love.
Do
you know that there is absolutely nothing you can do to earn God’s grace, His
mercy, or His love? It is absolutely and profoundly a GIFT. It has
been the hardest thing for me to receive. I am of the population of
people who struggle with pleasing people. It worries me what other’s
think, I will fret over a mistake or wrong word spoken to someone by accident
forever even after all apologies and forgiveness is given, I will still cringe
at the thought of doing anything wrong. I also don’t like it when I don’t
get along with someone, when I try in every way to befriend someone and they
don’t receive it. I have transferred all my experiences in people
relations to my relationship with God believing that I have to do something to
earn His love and favor.
Jesus
is the only one who sees me, not my past, not my failures, not my mistakes, not
my sins. He sees me and loves me. Even I can’t look at myself the
way He does. God poured out His grace and mercy and love through His Son
Jesus and there is not one thing you and I can do to earn it…though we try and
try and try because we mistakenly believe that because we have to prove our
worth to people, we have to prove something to God.
What
all any one of us has to do is receive His gift and understand that we are His
workmanship, everything good about us whether we know what that good is or not
was His gift to us. The only work required of you and me is to accept the
knowledge that God created us and then get rid of the lies that conditioned us
to be the neurotic, compulsive disorder we allowed to be conditioned in us
through our life. With that said we are looking at the impossible, right?
Wrong!
Absolutely nothing is impossible with God! The more we know Him, the more
we know His power. Out of His glorious riches He can strengthen us with
power through His Spirit in our inner being. God works from the inside out.
When we allow Him His power goes to work to reveal all the hidden lies and
secrets that we didn’t even know existed, but had a stronghold that guided our
every move and that wrong need of having to do something to be pleasing.
This is so that Christ may dwell, He may reside, He may take up room, and stay
in us, that He may consume us. This enables us to be rooted and
established in Christ that we no longer have to be pleasing, but we are
pleasing through Christ because His actions, thoughts, and words become ours
and we move and have our being in Him.
The
weight gets lifted we no longer live in our own strength, but as we learn and
accept the never ending love of God is specifically for everyone who will; we
become who God planned for us to be. The old passes away and behold we
become new more and more.
Receive
the gift, open it up, put it on and take it in to the deepest part of your
heart and soul and discover living in Christ!
In
HIS Time
Teresa
