Here’s a secret of God’s kingdom that not many people know about. Some do, but churches and the world are full of people who act this out every day without ever being aware that’s what they’re doing. What is this powerful secret?
Your behavior flows from your perception of who you are.
Do you think you’re a loser? You’ll act like one. A worthless sinner who will never get it right? That’s how your life will play out. A superior life form who’s better than everyone else? You’ll play that part, and other people will pick up on it—and probably not agree. However you see yourself will profoundly shape your actual experience.
If this is true—if your behavior inevitably flows from your self-perception—then why not go ahead and perceive yourself as God does? If you have come to him in Christ, you are his beloved child, a new creation, a saint with a renewed heart, a royal priest, a chosen one. You have to live from that identity. Everything else is less than God intended.
The world doesn’t need more half-hearted, disappointment-filled, wish-I-could-be-better people. It needs people who know who they are, people who are thoroughly confident in who God has made them and how he is shaping them.
God offers a stunning new identity, and it’s yours. If you know that, you’ll begin to live like it, even when you aren’t trying.
Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun.” (2 Corinthians 5:17 nlt)
