Daily Devotional: August 16

 

 

Seeing Yourself with 20/20 Vision

 

¹¹ And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds^[a] and teachers,^{[b] 12} to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood,^[c] to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, ¹⁴ so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. ¹⁵ Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Ephesians 4:11-16     

Whenever Lauren heard her youth pastor talk about “seeing yourself like God sees you,” she knew that was exactly what she wanted-and needed. But she didn’t want to work at getting God’s vision of herself.
She wasn’t willing to do the main thing she needed to do-spend time with her Bible, studying and soaking in God’s truth. And even though she went to church, she wasn’t nuts about letting those people too close.
Lauren sounds like someone with bad eyes who wants to see more clearly but won’t wear glasses.
Fact is, you can’t change how you see yourself without diving into God’s Word. It’s how you bring into focus the fact that you are lovable, valuable, and useful to God and others. Peter wrote, “You must crave pure spiritual milk so that you can grow into the fullness of your salvation. Cry out for this nourishment as a baby cries for milk, now that you have had a taste of the Lord’s kindness” (1 Peter 2:2-3). God’s Word is the number one agent in renewing your minds to think like he thinks and see as he sees (see Romans 12:2).
But you also can’t change how you see yourself without connecting with God’s people. Through his Word, God shows you what he is like-huge things like his at­tributes, character, and personality. Then through the church, God puts skin on those qualities. He makes them real to you.
It’s like what Jesus did to demonstrate who God is. He revealed God in a way hu­man beings could understand. Jesus told his disciples, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father …. Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work” (John 14:9-10, NN).
God wants to use his Word and the Christians around you to make you doubly sure you are loved, valued, and useful. There’s no better way to discover how God sees you than to dig into God’s Word. And there’s no better way to pound home that you are loved by God than to have caring believers remind you of and reflect to you what God sees. It’s one thing to read about God’s view of you in the Scriptures or hear about it in a sermon or Bible study. It’s even more real when you experience God through the members of his church.

REFLECT: How are you letting God’s Word and his people into your life?

PRAY: Ask God to help you make God’s Word and interaction with his people the priority it needs to be in your life.

 

Josh Mcdowell