Measuring Ourselves

I heard this on a television show yesterday and thought it was such wisdom. All too often we have let others with condemning, critical spirits (the joyless) define our worth and identify. Others who haven’t healed and been set free, who are still carrying wounds and trauma and projecting it forward on to others-even those they say they love.

Often when we are vulnerable (when we are children, when we have suffered great loss, when we have endured trauma, when our true identity has been muddied or even unknown to us) the enemy deceives us about the measure of ourselves, if you will. He persuades us to pick up those negative remarks and actions of the joyless and write them as truth across our hearts labeling ourselves as less than what has already been decided by our Creator. He knows it’s a sure fire way to keep us in bondage not only from knowing our true identity but also to the ripple effect that knowing our identity has on every other area of our lives and the ability to set us free.

The Bible says as a man thinks, so he is (Prov. 23:7). What we believe about ourselves rains down on every single area of our life, on each relationship close or otherwise, in our marriage and especially on our children.

It’s only when we know the Truth of who we are that we are able to negate any lies that come our way regarding “the measure of ourselves”. Otherwise we are at the mercy of other’s opinions (good or bad), shame or condemnation we carry as a result of failures or mistakes, ever changing feelings that the world encourages us to let govern our hearts along with countless other schemes of the enemy for our demise.

It’s wonderful truth that the measure of ourselves has nothing to do with ourselves but rather entirely because of Who ourselves belong to. There doesn’t need to be measuring by us or anyone else because God has measured us as His own; holy, chosen, precious, redeemed. No one’s measuring matters more than that-not even our own.

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