Telling Truth to Oneself:

I have been continuing to read the book, “The Well-Watered Woman,” by Gretchen Saffles.  This book continues to bring good insight about regular things a woman of God should do to prosper and thrive in their relationship with God.  This chapter I was reading was all about speaking truth to oneself and how we should constantly be reminding ourselves of God’s Word to make sure we really understand and love the Word of God and how we can instill this in our life. 

There are definitely times we can talk negatively to ourselves.  We can sometimes let our anxiety take over our mind and make us believe bad things about ourselves which is the opposite of what Christ teaches.  These bad thoughts can really end up taking over our thoughts and filling us with dread about where we stand in life.  When we are saved through Jesus Christ, we are supposed to remain in grace and freedom and therefore be filled with joy, hope, and happiness for both life and our walk with Christ. 

This is why it is important to speak truth to ourselves.  We need to know God’s Word so well that we are good about talking ourselves out of our anxiety spirals.  One quote in this book I really enjoyed is actually a quote by another author-Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself.”   We are listening to our anxious thoughts.  We are becoming consumed with thoughts and therefore we are not actually believing in God’s Truth. 

I really struggle with listening to the lies about myself.  I often think I need to be perfect the majority of the time.  There is no reason to make a mistake.  There is no reason to not be completely productive all the time.  Cole, my husband, will often have to tell me to stop being so hard on myself since I can just really pile on when I feel as though a mistake has been made. I have been slowly working on giving myself grace through depending on God’s grace. 

I also feel this way when it comes to doing my particular jobs and roles well.  I want to be the absolute best wife, best education coordinator, best volunteer, and the best Christian I can possibly be.  Obviously, there is a big importance of wanting to do the best you can, especially for God’s glory.  However, this really can only be done through the work of the Holy Spirit.  But sometimes I want to put so much of my identity into these particular roles, as opposed to a spirited filled Christian woman.  Then when something isn’t going well in one of these areas, I feel a hit on my identity.  Then there is the spiral.  This is why it is important to be grounded in God’s Truth instead. 

The Good News or the Gospel of Jesus is, we are not perfect.  We were made with sin and this is because the first man sinned with his wife, damning all human population to also be in sin.  We are not enough for Christ on our own.  We could not make it possible for ourselves to become like Christ or to enjoy a life with him.  However, God decided to send his son, Jesus to be offered as a sacrifice for human beings.  He was sent to die on the cross for our sins in order that we may have an opportunity to become one with Christ. All we have to do is become one with Christ and to develop a relationship with him and eternal life is to choose to follow him.  This is to turn away from our sins and to ask for forgiveness.  This is believing He is Lord and Savior and He is the only way to eternity. It is through Him and not through any of our own work.   

Through accepting Jesus as Lord, we need to continually remind ourselves that it is not our good works which bring us eternity or salvation.  There is nothing we can do to save ourselves.  We are still going to struggle to sin.  We are still going to be tempted and we will never be perfect.  However, we can continually seek God to be continuously a better follower than we had been previously through the work of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit can continually lead us to sanctification (the action of making or declaring something holy) and to a life of living in holiness.  

The challenge for this week is to tell yourself the Gospel. Tell yourself this truth.  Do not let the evil one make you believe you are not saved or you need to do more work.  Salvation is justification (being made right through Christ) and nothing else.  This is all we need.  All we need to have a relationship with Christ is to believe and trust in Him.   Tell this to yourself when you tell yourself you need to pray more, tell this to yourself when you get mad at yourself for forgetting to read your Bible, or when you chastise yourself about getting frustrated on the road.  Yes, it is good to be better about praying, reading the Bible and having more patience, but it is important to know this isn’t something we need to be overly consumed with.  We just need to be overly consumed with the Gospel.