By Jesus loves us with an everlasting, unfailing love. I mean He really LOVES US. He is really FOR us. His promises are yes and amen. He cannot fail or lie. He works all things together for our good, when we surrender and obey Him. The plans and dreams you have in Jesus are great, but He has prepared so much greater than you can even imagine.
If we could just grasp our place in the Father’s eyes, we wouldn’t worry another day of our lives. If we just understood our identity in Him, nothing would sway us any longer.
He is the prize. He is the reward. This journey of getting to know Jesus is the thing we strive for. Because when we seek Him, and realize HE is the goal, everything else gets added the way it’s supposed to.
And then when things don’t look the way we expected, we can rest in Jesus, because it’s all about and for Him anyway. He never changes, He never stops being in full knowledge, so we can have full confidence and assurance in Him and His stability and security.
When Jesus is our first love, we become immovable by our circumstances that are ever-changing. You see, we can enjoy the things the Lord has given us, but only to a point. Our ministries, our possessions, even our family members…. We cannot let these things become our idols. They can change and at a moment can be taken from us. But Jesus doesn’t change. He will forever be our King and Master and that is where we find our security and confidence. It was never about the ministry, works, or goals to begin with: those are just a byproduct of our relationship with the Creator.
It’s when we seek His face that things begin to change. It’s not in seeking the things, but in the Lord himself.
Our identity is in Him and who He is, not our gifting, our works, our platforms, our friends, etc.
I saw a post recently that said our identity is in the giver of the gifts, not the gifts themselves… and when you can really grasp that, everything will change and you will truly be set free from the opinion of man.
You’ll no longer base your success on what you accomplished that day, who you got a word for, your likes on your FB post, or how much money is in your bank account… you will now find your worth in the intimacy with the Father and the secret place and your identity will be strong and secure and immovable.
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Next, I want to cast down and expose the lie of the enemy that any one of us are better than the other. I’m not more anointed than you just because I’m writing this blog. The Lord is no favor of persons. Now, I like to think of myself as His most special one, but God is big enough that we are all the most special to Him! I mean He did leave the 99 for the 1, and we were all that 1 at one point.
Think about if you had 100 sheep on your farm and 99 sheep stayed and listened to your voice and were awesome, but that 1 kept running off. Would you use all the resources you had to go and find the 1? Would you be willing to lay down your life for that 1 sheep? What if it was the most annoying 1 and it drove you the craziest and kept running away over and over again?
Well that’s what Jesus did for us. Sometimes I think He probably thinks I’m the most annoying 1, haha, but He gave everything just for me… and you. He would have went to the cross for the 1, if there was JUST 1, aka you.
Think about a fancy christian conference hosted by a famous speaker or preacher and say thousands are set to attend. So you have the main speaker right? I mean they are a big deal! They were the one chosen to speak to thousands of christians!!! I mean this is huge!! They are the VIP guest.
And then say you have a homeless addict on the street corner who’s abandoned her children, who’s lost everything, who’s hit rock bottom, but she heard about this event and Jesus began wooing her there.
Well, the only difference between the speaker of that event and the homeless person or addict who walks in from that street corner is that the speaker has truly grasped their identity of who they are in Christ and then said yes Lord I will do whatever it takes. The speaker learned the truth and it set them free. They were picked up out of the pit and set on solid rock. They now know whose they are.
But that one off the street corner is the one we are sent to bring home.
That 1 is the one we should be going out and loving on and revealing their true identity to them so they can be set free also. It’s not that the speaker is any more special to the Lord, it’s that for whatever reason, their circumstances got them up there sooner than the one still lost and broken.
It’s our job to reveal that truth to the one who is still out there lost and blind. The speaker is now the 99 and that person walking in broken is the 1 and we are to be like Jesus so we are to go and bring them home. Our ministries are all about the 1.
Now we can be in the 99 and still struggle, so I believe the 1 changes. If your friend is solid in Christ, but they are having a tough day or circumstance, then they can become the 1. To me, the 1 is whoever needs help in that moment. The one we are called to serve, pray for, and support. The one we are to go out our way & comfortability for. We can become the 1 at times, even if we have been set free already because we all go through valleys.
But may we always remember it’s about the 1. Jesus always went the extra mile for the one hurting, broken, beat down and bruised.
And I want to encourage us to find our identity in the lover of our souls so that we can adequately and effectively pour out to the 1. And also, that we may never think so highly of ourselves to not let others pour into us when we need it, OR to think we have become the VIP guest and we are too good to go to that 1 on the street corner. We are all in this together, let’s start acting like it!
Hannah Smith, author of the Moving Mountains blog, is a woman who feels she has experienced a lot of life in her 30 years.
At 19 years old, Hannah joined the Army. After moving around the country, getting a divorce and losing what seemed like everything, she landed back where God wanted her in Ohio, even though she fought the whole way. She is now in charge of the prayer team at her church and seeks the Lord with all she’s got.
Hannah is married and a RN, but works as a stay-at-home mom to her daughter, Isabella, and her son, Grayson.
She loves to hike, travel, drink coffee, and talk about Jesus. Hannah also has a heart to create a home and life in which she can be a safe place for the hurting and the broken.
To her readers, Hannah says, “I believe that God set every single one of you reading this apart, for such a time as this. It is my hope and prayer that God would use the words I say to change your life in a way you and I never thought possible!”
by leaps and bounds 