Identity - The Spiritual Dimension 1

Progressing from man’s way of building positive self esteem through appearance, achievement, positive thinking, relationships and status we now examine the spiritual dimension.
An overly simplified summary is this: men and women have two distinct self esteem needs. One is a need to feel significant and the other is to feel secure. Spiritually, security is derived from knowing God at increasingly deeper and more intimate levels. Significance comes from knowing who we really are “in Christ.”

We’ll spend the next considerable time purusing the topic “knowing God” to lay the foundation for a a depth of security that can not be manufactured by any human source.

A.W. Tozer declared that, “The understanding of God is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God.” The words “Be still and know that I am God” had become meaningless to the hustling, self-confident Christians he knew. There were more interesed in living a victorious life than in knowing God.

Who is God? What does God have to do with my self-esteem?
A magazine advertisement pictured a dog and a cat lying side by side in harmony. The legend over the picture stated: “A couple of VIPs” (very important pets). What makes them important is who owns them.”

What makes you and me important is who owns us. The Psalmist wrote, “It is God that hath made us, and not we ourselves, we are his people…” Psalm 100:3, KJV
The new Testament states it this way: And because we are his sons God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, so now we can rightly speak of God as our dear Father. Now we are no longer slaves, but God’s own sons. And since we are his sons, everything he has belongs to us, for that is the way God planned.”

Think of it! Everything God has is ours. As one man said, “We pull our chair up to God’s table and say, ‘pass the biscuits.’” All His resources are at my disposal. As we look at this mind-blowing concept every day, think of the dynamic influence on our self esteem. All His resources are ours (mine).

The Bible challenges us to know God:
2 Pet.1:2LB Do you want more and more of God’s kindness and peace? Then learn to know him better and better. For as you know him better, he will give you, through his great power, everything you need for living a truly good life; he even shares his own glory and his own goodness with us. And by that same mighty power he has given us all the other rich and wonderful blessings he promised; for instance, the promise to save us from the lust and rottenness all around us, and to give us his own character.

Dear fellow sojourner, do you get a little glimpse of the awesome impact God wants to have on our life? More tomorrow.