It’s all up to me!

Dr. Neil Anderson in his book, Victory Over Darkness, shares several truths about how satan wants us to think about our identity and how God’s word speaks truth into those lies.

Satan’s lie: You get your identity from what you have done.  God’s truth: You get your identity from what God has done for you. Thank you for this reminder, Dr. Anderson.

What pride when I think it’s all up to me. Yet in some situations I confess … and repent … that I think that. After all, I’m the spiritual one. And they know that. My friend identifies with this and she words it I have to be the one to make it happen.

Over and over, God reminds, my identity is based on his truth, not my doings. My identity is based on what God has done for me. I often pray over these truths …

“The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me:
your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.
Do not forsake the work of your hands.”
Psalm 138:8

“I planted,
Apollos watered,
but God gave the growth.”
I Corinthians 3:6

“And I am sure of this,
that he who began a good work in you
will bring it to completion …
Philippians 1:6

“And it turns out, a me centered view of anything, including one’s theology,  is the lens through which we end up seeing the skewed idea of never being enough…”. Ruth Chou Simons, When Strivings Cease, page 119.  I highly recommend this book.

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Truth: It’s NOT all up to me. This little child, does not have it (whatever ‘it’ is). And neither do I. God’s got it.

God will fulfill his purpose for me which happens to be all bound up in his love. (Psalm 138:8) God has a place and a desire for me to contribute, but he keeps the responsibility for the results in his court. (I Corinthians 3:6 and Philippians 1:6)

Matthew 4:1-11 records the narrative of Jesus being tempted by the devil. In each of three temptations, the devil goes after places of vulnerability, like hunger. In the first instance, Jesus had just finished a 40 day fast and naturally was hungry. “And the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he (Jesus) answered, ‘It is written, Man shall not live be bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'” Matthew 4:3 and 4.

In each of satan’s temptations, he shoots his arrows at places of Jesus’s identity.

In each of the temptations, Jesus responds with truth, with the Word of God. Jesus is secure in his identity. In Jesus’s reality he is teaching me how I need to respond to the lies I tend to believe, those places of my vulnerability. Those places where the arrows are aimed at my identity.

As I look over the list in my journal of the lies I tend to believe and the truths that counteract them, I realize everyone is somehow a picture of how I view myself. Each speaks to my identity.

“For the word of God is living and active,
sharper than any two-edged sword,
piercing to the division of soul and of spirit,
of joints and of marrow,
and discerning the thoughts and intention of the heart.”
Hebrews 4:12