The Inner Picture

March 22, 2022

Devotions:

Everyone carries an inner picture of themselves. This picture sets the limits which they will allow themselves to go. If that picture shows that you are a failure, then as hard as you try to succeed, you will find some way to fail, because success does not fit that inner picture. Humans and most Christians see themselves as sinners and are controlled by sin consciousness, guilt and shame. Sin consciousness robs us of the initiative to succeed. We might attain to the outward appearance of success but inwardly we are empty and hollow. We feel that we do not measure up to our God’s standard. When we look at ourselves this is evidentially true. Righteousness means that we totally measure up to our Father’s expectations and His standard. We know that we are not righteous by our own works so we walk around condemned and in sin consciousness. 

But our righteousness is of God as a gift to us. Jesus became our sin so that we might become His righteousness. Jesus was fully approved by the Father. We are in Jesus and He is in us so we are also fully approved by the Father. We do not look to our own righteousness but we focus not His righteousness within us. As we do this then our actions will come in line with who we are. When we look at our righteousness, our strength, our effort, then we are defeated. Just like the Israelites looked at their own ability to enter the promised land in Numbers 13 and said we cannot enter. What stopped them? The giants? No, what stopped them was their own inner image of themselves without God. Joshua and Caleb looked just as puny compared to the giants but they looked to God and His promises to give them the land.

The picture that we have within ourselves can be changed as we meditate on the word of God to think about ourselves what God thinks. Christianity in the past painted an inaccurate picture of believers, that we were just sinners, defeated and barely saved. But God thinks differently. He sees us as new creations, recreated in righteousness and holiness. How do you see yourself?