ground our heart

Genesis 1:26-28
Psalm 139:13-14
Ephesians 2:1-10
2 Timothy 3:16-17
Romans 8:35-39

Did you know that you are incredibly loved by the Most High God?
Not just your friend, your sister, your mom, your pastor, or your revered grandfather.
No, you.
You, yourself, as you are, are loved by Him!

It’s easy to believe in the existence of God’s love for others,
but it’s far harder to believe His love is for us as much as for them.

This is particularly challenging on those days when we really don’t like what we see staring back at us in the mirror. I don’t know about you, but I don’t always view the girl I see in the mirror as being treasured, lovable, or desirable. But she is!

I’ve always wished for a stronger jawline, slimmer thighs, and a less prominent nose, but none of these make up my identity, nor are they accurate representations of how God made me. While I commonly see flaws in the mirror, those are my own false opinions of myself, not the perspective through which God views me.

Psalm 139:13-14 says,
“For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.”

While it’s easy to see the beauty of a rose, a sunset, or a fall-colored leaf and believe God’s works to be wonderful, but this passage isn’t describing any of those things.
These verses are talking about you!
You are wonderfully made!

Does your soul know that very well?

The truth is you have been made in the image of God with care, precision, love, and artistry. You have been “created in Christ Jesus” as His workmanship according to Ephesians 2:10. You have been designed “for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that [you] should walk in them.”

You are not a mistake, an afterthought, or an accident.
You have been created in the image of God Himself,
tasked with purpose and mission,
and made beautiful in His sight.
That, my friend, is the truth of who you are.

Our identity isn’t based on how we look, what we do, or what others think of us. It is only based on who God created us to be and what He has to say about us. Until we grasp this truth for ourselves, it will be incredibly hard (if not impossible!) to discover a firm foundation of our identity.

You see, if we base our identity in anything other than Christ and who He made us to be as treasured, beautiful, beloved daughters of God, we will always find ourselves on the proverbial identity roller coaster.

When we base our identity in our looks (which change),
our job or position (which isn’t guaranteed to last),
or our relationships (which come and go),
we will be building on a faulty, wobbly, ever-changing, insecure foundation.

When we live like this, it’s difficult to produce the good fruit God designed for us to walk in. (Galatians 5:22-26) When our roots of identity are weak and failing, taking every thought captive to God’s truth of how we view ourselves, is a hard task.

We can break free from the lies our eyes tell us about ourselves
when we ground our hearts in the truth of Scripture.

When we begin with who God says we are, then our identity is anchored in the firm, unchanging foundation of the truth of God’s Word.

Body image is a challenge for all of us!
Let’s immerse ourselves in truth, and fight back against those lies.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 says,
“All Scripture is breathed out by God
and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
and for training in righteousness,
that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

Do you want to be equipped for the good works God crafted you for?
Do you want to have a healthy body image based on truth rather than passing fads?
Do you want to truly believe you are wholly loved by God?
Start in God’s Word!

Let’s make it our mission to be in His Word every day and watch our view of ourselves, and our bodies, radically transform through the amazing love of our Creator God!

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