1. The first step to pursuing the person God created you to be is to recover our lost sense of worth by saying, “God, I admit that I need your help and your power to find what I’ve been searching for all my life.”
•This is a huge step, and most of us just skip over it.
•We don’t stop and admit that without God we’re lost on the journey toward our destined self-esteem.
•The reason many of us have skipped over this crucial step is that we still want to be the boss.
•Our sinful nature still battles within us.
•We want to forge our own futures, carve our own paths.
•We want to be autonomous, independent.
•Because of our pride and because we still think we know what’s best for us, we want to kick God out of the control center of our lives. In other words, we want to play God.
•That’s pretty radical rebellion, isn’t it?
•Yet that’s exactly what we do.
2. We struggle with the issue of control, trying to be the boss. When we blow the test, the first thing we do is try some image control.
•We figuratively cover ourselves with fig leaves so God and other people won’t notice that we’ve lost control; that we’ve messed up.
•We try so hard to camouflage our pain, but God uses pain as an alarm to wake us up to a problem. Sometimes He lets a crisis or catastrophe occur to stimulate us to a change.
•The sad thing is, it often takes a crisis before we’re willing to deal with our baggage.
•People do the same with their pain.
•They try to cover and camouflage the hurt.
•They drink to numb it, eat to avoid it, smoke to cloud it, and snort to deaden it.
•They get angry and criticize others.
•If I’m going to be miserable, they think subconsciously, I’m going to make sure everyone else is miserable.
•But none of that works. Nothing can completely cover the nagging hurt inside.
•Only when we admit that we’ve lost control and ask for help can we resolve the core issues that cause our pain.
•We think, I’ll put off asking for help until tomorrow, or until next week, possibly before next year.
•I can control it. I can make it. I’m strong enough.
•Here’s the deal though. If we had the power to control it ourselves, fix it ourselves, or continue living in it by ourselves we would have already reached our goal, right?
•How long are we going to wait before we admit that we can’t do it on our own?
•It’s time just to ask.
•When God looks at our lives, He sees all the baggage weighing us down.
•We think we’re ready to board God’s flight, but He wants us to slow down, stop and help by taking our bags.
•He wants us to ask for help.
•We can’t deal with all that stuff.
•Isn’t it about time we admit that?
3. Realize…He cares.
•Jesus not only knows about our problems and our pain, He legitimately cares.
•The bible calls Jesus the Good Shepherd because He is demonstrative and sympathetic to the needs of His flock.
•Yet He also knows when to employ tough love through discipline.
•He strikes the perfect balance between correction and compassion.
Consider Jesus’ own words:
John 10:11-13 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep.12 A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don't belong to him and he isn't their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock.13 The hired hand runs away because he's working only for the money and doesn't really care about the sheep.”
•I think this is one of the greatest passages in all of scripture because it spells out Christ’s relationship with us.
•Why does He care so much for us?
•Because we’re His. We belong to Him.
•When Christ purchased our pardon by laying down His life, He pulled us back from the jaws of the enemy.
•No matter what we’re going through, no matter how far we lose our way or wander off from the sheep pen, Christ will not abandon us.
•Jesus is not some hired hand being paid by the hour.
•He is the shepherd, the owner of the sheep, and He always there loving us, forgiving us, and helping us.
Philippians 2:13 “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”
•So we really have no excuses.
•God gives us the desire to change, and He gives us the power to change. God gives YOU the desire, the power and the authority to change.
•That in itself is an incredible thought.
4. Finally, we don’t need to concern ourselves with what we cannot do.
•We just need to focus on what God has given us the ability to do and then do it with all our hearts.
Colossians 3:23-24 “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.24 Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ.”
•What we do for a career is not near as important as the level of excellence and commitment with which we do it.
•Satan would like nothing better than to keep us in a vocational funk so we end up working halfheartedly.
•The end result would be wasted potential, missed opportunities, and profound regret.
•That’s not what God wants.
•He is beckoning us to the edge of the diving board and prompting us to dive into the fulfilling work He has set before us.
•We work for the Lord wherever we are.
•God calls each of us to serve Him based on our gifts and abilities.
•The fact that I work for a church, and someone else works for a law firm, a bank, or a plumber is not the issue.
•The issue is, in whatever vocation God has placed us, are we working for Him with all our hearts?
•Completion is in Him, not jobs, money, fame, relationships, marriage, or any other thing.
•Completion resides in HIM!
“Spiritual freedom is not just being released from something; it is also being released to something.”
YOU are free from sin and YOU are freed to pursue the person God created YOU to be!
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