Insecurity and self-rejection

Insecurity and self-rejection have no place in the Kingdom of God.

In today's culture, insecurity and self-rejection have reached an all-time high. I’m seeing this in men more than I ever have before, so many guys simply don't like themselves, or where they are in life because they believe their personal story is one of insignificance. Life has become mundane and predictable. Left with this kind of perspective, one’s self-worth leads to ruts that sadly, keep most Christians stuck to the same old chapter in their story because their opinions of self do not reflect the opinions of God. He is the Author and Finisher of our Faith. If you are not totally excited about this truth about your story then consider rebooting your perspectives about How God feels about you and let’s move on to the next chapter in your story.
 
Over the last few years, I have met countless people who believed God was angry with them because their story didn’t look like they thought it was going to. (Folks didn’t know it but they were in good company!) They felt as if they had never met goal, or hadn’t "arrived" at a certain level of perfection. As a result, they live in a state of perpetual flux in their relationship with God — continually rejecting themselves and feeling bad every time they make a mistake. With so many, self-worth and the image of God being worked into their life becomes incomprehensible. Without a proper understanding of who we are in Christ, people seek validation and love through the opinions of others, their personal accomplishments, or in their own pride they will fabricate a façade for the folks in their inner circle to be impressed by but, this is only temporary and always leads back to the same stuck in life feelings and dissatisfaction with everything about our story. I speak from experience! In fact, to this day there remains a religious segment that perpetuates the old aspects of my story just to elevate their own in contrast.
 
Verses to Re-boot your self-value.
 
John 3:1-2 (NIV)
 
1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
 
 
There's one thing for sure — Our dad, loves His children even though we don’t fully understand what He has been doing in us. Certainly Jesus didn't just give His life for us to walk around feeling guilty and condemned. He wants us to feel great about ourselves and our relationship with Him. And it all starts with discovering and re-booting to our true identity in Christ. 
 
Are You a Believer or an Achiever?
 
For many years, I tried to please God with my story. It seemed as if I was living on a performance treadmill — always trying to do something to feel good about myself and at the same time feel like I was in right standing with Him. In the process, I became weary, worn-out, unhappy and ultimately prideful. I came to the realization after falling in my sin, frustration, and self-righteousness, that it was never going to work. My self-value was so bad that I considered taking my own life.
 
No matter how much we love God and choose to do what's right, we will always be frustrated if we don't learn of His Amazing Grace.
 
Ephesians 2:8 (AMP) says, "For it is by free grace (God's unmerited favor) that you are saved (delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ's salvation) through [simple] faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [of your own doing, it came not through your own striving]…."
 
There is nothing we can do to earn our salvation or right standing with God…we have been made right with Him through our faith in Jesus Christ. A believer that is lacking this understanding is bound up like a hound dog trying to pass a peach pit, like a jumbo jet on the runway with no gasoline — he has all the equipment but is going nowhere!  You park in the free parking zone in front of God’s house but you don’t have enough sense to get out and go in because someone told you the car you are driving is a jalopy, a crate, a heap, wreck, rattletrap, or a beater. You get my meaning!  This is one of the few times I believe it is acceptable to tell the religious to shut up!
 
In His mercy, God allowed me to see that there was absolutely nothing I could do to make Him love me any more or less than He already did. All He wanted was for me to believe in Jesus, the One Whom He sent (see John 6:29) and receive the righteousness He provided.
 
See Yourself Through God's Eyes, through the lens of Jesus.
 
In order for us to experience true freedom and grow in our relationship with God, we need to learn to accept ourselves right where we are and see ourselves the way God sees us. As we do, we will begin to understand that becoming like Christ is a process that takes time...and that God will be faithful to finish the good work He began. This is your Story! The Good Work God Began.
 
Second Corinthians 5:21 (AMP) says, "For our sake He made Christ [virtually] to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in and through Him we might become…the righteousness of God [what we ought to be, approved and acceptable and in right relationship with Him, by His goodness]."
 
This is the basis of self-acceptance, self-worth, self love, and acceptance of our story — knowing that God accepts us through Jesus and sees us as totally righteous. This does not mean that we don't sin anymore or that we can dismiss it like it's no big deal. It simply means that God loves us even while we are on our way—while we are in the process of becoming like Christ — before we have "arrived."
Phillipians 12-13
 
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
 
Romans 5:8 says that He proved His love for us by sending His Son "while we were still sinners." In other words, He didn't wait until we were righteous to send Jesus — He sent Jesus because we would never be righteous without Him!
 
My worth, value, and love for what He is doing in my story is centered on and originates in Christ.
 
Now there is a story worth living and telling!
 
For those who perpetuate the old offenses, the old man, the old stories. You are no longer allowed to keep me stuck in the old ruts my story any longer. You have been a noose about the neck of a child of the King and your stories are not acceptable in the Kingdom of God.