What words describe you?
When I did this I put words like teacher,
daughter, and youth leader, but also words like smart, sarcastic, and reliable.
Did you use words like "beautiful", "loved",
"valuable"?
My guess is you know what the Bible says…You
know that God loves you and you are valuable and all that. BUT I also think
most of us don't really believe that—our actions don't show it.
Ever watch Good Will Hunting? If you happen to catch it on tv, it’s an entertaining movie, don’t watch it otherwise, it’s rated R and should be!! So Matt Damon plays this guy Will Hunting who has had a rough life. He was foster child who was abused and he feels worthless. He works at MIT as a janitor and through a series of events a professor realizes that Will is a genius! He tries to get him to enroll in school and teach him, but Will feels unworthy and doesn’t want the help. So this professor sets him up with a psychologist to try and help him work through things. So this psychologist played by Robin Williams realizes that although Will knows that he is smart, and has potential and can do great things, he really doesn’t believe it—his actions don’t show it. So one of the final scenes of the movie, Robin Williams grabs Matt Damon in this big bear hug and repeats over and over again how smart/valuable he is. Will Hunting needed the constant repetition to remove the lies he believes and accept the truth.
We are constantly being bombarded by lies
about our value/worth. Just like Matt Damon, we need to hear the truth over and
over again.
(We interrupt this broadcast for a
commercial break: Lies Young Women Believe by Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Dannah Gresh is written on
this very topic. I'd highly recommend you read it! The book talks about various
lies we believe, particularly as females, and counters them with the Scripture.)
Open up your Bible to John 8:32 and write
it down in this space:
Why are lies so harmful to us? Well think
about where do lies come from? John 8:44-45 tells us lies are from the devil
who is the father of lies. John 10:10 tells us that Satan’s goal is to steal,
kill and destroy, whereas Jesus came for us to have abundant life.
Satan has a way of making lies look good
though. We need to be very aware of this. Let’s take a look at Eve again. Read
Genesis 3:1-6.
Now first thing I want to point out, in
verse 1, what does it tell us about the serpent?
Satan is clever. He is sneaky with how he
gets us to believe lies. And look more specifically at what he told Eve. They
weren’t blatant lies. He took some truth and put a spin on it so it was no
longer true, but sounded similar enough to what God had said, that she believed
him.
Ever hear this little word picture... If
you put a frog in boiling water, he'll jump out. If you put him in cold water
and heat it up, he'll boil. The frog knows hot water is bad but if you
gradually heat it up he doesn’t notice the change. I think Satan does this sort
of thing with us. He gets us to believe on little lie which leads to another
and suddenly we’re in a pot of boiling water wondering what happened!
So we know lies ultimately come from
Satan, but on a regular basis where do the lies we believe come from?
First, we hear lies from the media—billboards,
magazines, tv show and movies, commercials.
The media tells us we're not good enough. Look at all the
beauty products and magazine covers to get flatter abs or lose 5 pounds or this
or that.
The media also airbrushes unattainable "beauty." The
way these models look in real life is not the way we see them in magazines.
Kate Winslet after being on a magazine cover said, "'I
don't look like that and more importantly, I don't desire to look like that...
They've reduced the size of my legs by about a third.'"
And even if you think it’s not airbrushed when you see it,
remember the media distorts reality. The average US woman is 5'4" and
weighs 140 pounds whereas the average US model is 5'11" and weighs 117
pounds. For those of you who may not do
the math as quickly as me :) that means models are about 6 inches taller but weigh about 25 pounds less than
the average woman. We will never look the way they do! It’s unrealistic to
think otherwise!!
The second source we hear lies from is the people around us.
Sadly, parents, teachers, "friends", classmates, siblings, among
others have made comments that cut to our core. Maybe they were blatant lies
repeated so often you started to believe them “You’re lazy,” “You’re ugly,”
“You’ll never amount to anything,” “You’re not as smart as your sister,” “You
could afford to lose some weight,” “You were an accident,” “You can’t do
anything right,” “You’re embarrassing.” Is there a lie you believe that I
didn’t mention?
Maybe people said something that wasn’t such a blatant lie, but
it still affected you. A sarcastic comment. An unkind suggestion. A poorly
timed joke. A heat-of-the-moment insult.
Or is what people didn’t say that hurts? No one ever said you
were beautiful, loved, valuable, worthy, smart, funny.
Comments people make can really hurt us, whether they were said
intentional or not.
What lie(s) that others have said do you believe?
The last source that lies come from is
you. Yes that’s right, we lie to ourselves! Any of these situations sound
familiar?
·
You walk in a room and people chuckle- you assume they're
laughing at you...
·
Your jeans felt this morning so you skip lunch...
·
You watch a tv show/movie and think guys won't love me
because I'm not like her...
·
You’re sitting at home on a Friday night and think you
must be a loser or you’d be out with friends…
·
You get a bad grade on test and think, you’re just not
smart enough…
We beat ourselves up constantly! We allow
jealousy, bitterness, anger, and the like to impact how we view ourselves. All
of these are youthful lusts we need to flee from (2 Tim 2:22).
So that’s a lot of negative things we’ve
just talked about. Let's look at the truth... and once isn't enough. Read these
verses, but don’t just leave it at that! Put them on a notecard where you can
see them constantly. Make them you fb status. Remember Jesus said “You shall know
the truth and set you free!"
Look up these verse and jot down what they
are saying:
These few focus on our beauty (inward and
outward):
1 Peter 3:3-4
1 Timothy 2:9-10
These few focus on our value to God:
Luke 12:6-7/ Matt 10:29-31
Psalm 34:8-15
Psalm 45:13
Ever feel like you’ve screwed up so bad
you don’t deserve God’s love? Check out these verses:
Deuteronomy 31:6
Romans 8:38-39
Ephesians 1:4
1 John 4:9
Jeremiah 31:3
This last passage is probably familiar to
you. It’s got quite a few verses. Read it slowly and really think about what it
says. Think about how it sums up all that we’ve been talking about. Read Psalm
139.
A few last things...
At snow camp, during the girls session,
they used a passage that I never would have related to self-value, but it was
awesome! Where you there? Do you remember it?
In Luke 15 Jesus tells the parables of the
Lost Sheep, Lost Coin and Lost Son. The point the speaker at snow camp made was
that the sheep and coin had value to the owner, whereas the son's value came
from the Father.
Our value comes from God—not from the
media or our parents or friends or even ourselves. You catch that? In case you
missed it, let me repeat it. Your value comes from God.
My guess is even after reading all of what
I said and looking at all those verse, you probably still don’t believe that
you are beautiful, valuable and loved. Take a look at this letter written from
a man to females in general. You read it? Powerful stuff!
At Women of Faith this past year, I heard
a testimony that really connects with the last thing this letter talked about.
Nicole Johnson, a Christian comedian/writer/speaker, shared about how a series
of events in her life including a divorce left her feeling broken and
worthless. She packed up all her belongings in a huge moving truck and drove
cross-country with her friend to her new house. When they arrive and opened the
truck all of her belongings we broken—they had forgotten to turn on the air
suspension that would protect her things. The next day her parents and friend
helped her sort through everything on the truck and figure out what was
salvageable and what was trash. At the end of this long, exhausting day, she
was sweeping out the last of broken pieces of her stuff. Among the trash was a
bunch of broken pieces of glass—from decorations that hadn’t survived the trip.
She handed this bag of trash to her friend. Fast Forward to about a year later
at Christmas time. Nicole opens a gift from her friend and it’s a beautiful
stained glass window ornament—made with all of the broken pieces of glass! Her
friend had taken what Nicole deemed as trash that day to an artist who saw it’s
value and made beauty from the brokenness.
Friend, give God your broken pieces and
let Him bring beauty from them! Whatever that may look like for you.
On the Girls Retreat, we concluded this
lesson by watching the music video for “You Are More” by Tenth Avenue North. Go watch it! We gave each girl a chalkboard and had them write
struggles, sins, secrets, etc. like they do in the video. If you have a
chalkboard, I’d recommend you do it to!
Although this is the end of what I have to
say to you, this isn’t the end of the message. Look up those verses again and
again as you need to be reminded of the truth. Find other verses that speak to
the lies you believe! I need to hear the truth over and over again and so do
you!
No comments:
Post a Comment