The Truth About Ourselves

I didn't know that this was the 10th or 10th year of holding the Hearts of Revival conference and I find it funny that that was shown before speaking because 10 years ago in October was when the Lord rescued me from my sin and so a year later it is When I met the woman who discipled me, a woman named Santería, and she introduced me to reviving our hearts through the workbook Nancy wrote called Looking for Him, that's when I discovered I was prouder than I could be. I never imagined it and that's why I'm grateful to be here.

I don't think I ever imagined that God would have rescued me and given me to him, but also that he would use me to empower other women to love him well. I appreciate that, but anyway, if you're on social media, specifically Instagram and Twitter, you've most likely noticed that everyone has a bio section on their page. If you're not on social media, the bio is the area where people put what they want you to know about them my bio, for example, it says disciple, wife, mother, writer, teacher, poet, MC because that's what I do , other people may have a bad cook, a great dancer.

I don't really know, but you get the gist, biography is our opportunity to learn. about someone before deciding to follow them or not, for those of us who have written a bio on social media, there is usually some intentionality behind it. One way we know this is the case is that we don't write down the things that embarrass us. As for other things we don't want people to know on our bio pages, we usually leave out the bad stuff because if this bio is the way I'll present myself to someone, then this bio will be the version of myself I prefer to them. know so they see it first for those of us who have written a bio on social media, specifically for all the people we have never met, we will read what they have to say about themselves and usually take their word, so if you read the pastor's wife, the mother, the bible teacher, you may believe you are this person and usually if you follow them long enough or post enough pictures you will eventually affirm them , since I may see her post a photo of her serving the church or cooking for her children and in the comments you will write that you are a great wife, a great mother, with three heart emojis to follow and I am very encouraged by your leadership of service with the little emoji that does that, I don't know what. means, but that's all and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, it is simply an image of what is happening to us and to us all the time, which is what we constantly project onto the people we think we are and, in turn, we constantly receive. of people think we are, but the question is who I think I am and who people say I am is true and where do I go to discover the

truth

of who I am and who I should be.

Pray to God. I am grateful for your kindness. I am grateful for your gospel. I pray that we believe that you are good and that you are right and your evaluation of us in the name of Jesus. Amen. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth as He made light, man and made water, made vegetation and living creatures and if you look through Genesis 1, you will notice that the language that God used to bring these things into existence It is consistent if You have your Bibles and you will soon have them because, by the way, you are a real woman.

Please go to Genesis chapter 1. If not, there is no shame. I promise you Genesis chapter 1 looking at verse 3 and I'm going to read a couple. Verses after that I want you to notice some consistency here Genesis 1 verse 3 says and God said let there be light and there was light Genesis 1 verse 6 says and God said let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters Genesis 1 verse 9 let the waters under the heavens be gathered into one place and let dry land appear. I'm going somewhere Genesis 1 verse 24 and God said let the earth produce living creatures according to their kinds of livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds and it was like that what are the two phrases that are repeated?

They are oh praise God I thought it was rhetorical I'm glad you're ready I'm so glad you are God said and there is less the whole world exists and the universe is being made by the effective Word of God, he speaks and things happen, that there is light and there is like God is God, so he does not use his hands or any external resources. to create simply says it and it is so, the interesting thing is that as God creates light, earth, water, vegetation and living creatures, the language remember is the same, but when we get to verse 26, the language it changes the repetitive nature of how God brought everything. creation stops when God decides to do something else now verse 24 says and God said let the earth produce living creatures but verse 26 says then God said let us make man in our image and likeness the language is totally different as if God is saying that what I'm doing now is completely different from anything I've done before and what He did this time, made man in His image and likeness, so in talking about this concept of identity and talking about what it means to be you and to talk of

ourselves

and try to understand our own BIOS, so to speak, we must all ask

ourselves

the question: Who am I or who are we? and if you want the answer you have to go back to Genesis 1 and there you will see. that we are all image bearers of the Living God being an image bearer means many things to us today but I will briefly touch on just one, the first is that being made in the image of God means that we matter as human beings.

We have an innate dignity because we bear the image of God. I know this, although it doesn't take as much effort for me to believe that I, as the bearer of the image, deserve honor and respect as it does for me to believe that other people do. It is truly my treatment of other image bearers that will testify to what I truly believe about the doctrine of the imago day and also how much I value the one in whose image we are made. Let me explain to you in Genesis 9 that God is making a pact with note Noah after the water of the flood comes down on him God tells Noah that there will be consequences for whoever takes another man's life let me read it verbatim verse 6 says whoever spills the blood of man by man his blood will be shed because or because God made man in his own image the value of human life is so high that God told Noah that if anyone had the audacity to take it then his would also be taken why because humanity bears the image of the Living God when we move in the other. direction towards the new testament and you find yourself in the book of James in chapter 3, James is talking about the tongue and how it is a fire and a world of injustice and how it is a disturbing evil and do you know by the example that he gives ?

From how this evil looks, it says that we do this evil when the same language that we use to bless our Lord and father becomes the same language that curses people and not only leaves the sentence to the people, it qualifies it by saying people who are made in the image of God in Genesis 9 there are consequences for what is done to a person made in the image of God and James 3 there are consequences for what is said about or to a person made in the image of God the point is that each living person black white asian hispanic gay straight immigrant old poor privileged mentally ill mentally disabled single married whatever or whoever everyone carries the image of God so we should think twice before we even try to think we shouldn't treat the message image bearers image bearers are important to God, so they should matter to us, you know what?

The fact that we even have to be exhorted and challenged to love other image-bearers tells us that something is not quite right, all things should not be as they are. it should be when it comes to being made in the image of God because if they were we wouldn't have racism we wouldn't have abortion we wouldn't have abuse we wouldn't have murder and we wouldn't have this earring making me nervous, it has, we wouldn't have disrespect and dishonor in our marriages , we wouldn't have gossip, we wouldn't have pornography, we wouldn't have sex trafficking, how come we are all made in the image of God and we live in a world surrounded by image bearers and yet the world looks a lot like the devil in Genesis 1 after that God blesses Adam and Eve verse 31 says that God saw everything he did and that it was very good Adam and Eve were included in what God called good but in Romans 3, while Paul talks about our injustice, he says that no one is good and in Mark 10 Jesus himself says that no one is good except God, so what happened between God calling the people he made in his image good and Jesus and Paul? telling us that no one is good, how do we get here where we can see that goodness is not in us nor is it always around us?

What happened to the image bearers of the Living God? click on what you prefer. Verse one says now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made, he said to the woman, the God actually said you shall not eat of any tree in the garden, so the woman. He said to the snake we can eat the fruit of the trees in the garden but God said you will not eat the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden nor will you touch it so that you do not die but the snake told the woman you will surely not die because God knows that When you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desired to become wise she took of its fruit and she ate and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate then both of their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths there is a lot here but I want to talk about One thing is that they realized that when the devil approached Eve and was tempting her to distrust the word and the personal God, that one of the ways he did it was by telling her that she could have another identity, look at the verse 5 says because God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be open and you will be like who you will be like God knowing good and evil what a heady idea that somehow eating a little fruit could make you like the one who created it and when The devil told Eve that she would be like God knowing good and evil, he was not telling her the whole

truth

.

God being God knows. good and evil because he knows everything, so in a sense her eating from the tree would give her a knowledge of good and evil that she didn't have, but what the devil didn't tell her is that she wouldn't know the good and evil in him in the same way that God does because she would know evil by experience. God is holy. He has never known nor will he know evil from personal experience. He only knows the good. In this way he knows evil as a doctor might know cancer. Something he completely understands, but as something that is. totally out of her mind but when Eve disobeyed God's commandment she would not know evil like a doctor knows cancer but she would know evil like a patient those cancer she would not be the doctor she would become the one who is sick is in this deception of that she did not realize that by sinning against God she would become inherently different from him because this evil would not be there somewhere, it would be in her and in him being in her and in her in her husband this image that were made and they would be blurred, you would see the image of God marred by expressions of sin that would inevitably take the glory that God intended to extract from humanity and put all that glory that he deserved in the hands of people who had never belonged and this same deception is not us to Even though we are still image bearers of the Living God when we were born into this world we were also born as sinners who sin against the Living God and it is this deception that is the sin that then shapes who we think we are when we are deceived we go through life gathering information about ourselves from everyone except God.

I am who this relationship says I am. I am what my bank statement says. I went to an Ivy League school. so my personality is centered on my intelligence. I have children, so everything I do, everything I am, is completed by being a mother. I'm over 35 and still single, so I must not be worthy of love. I have been married for 25 years and my husband still hasn't changed I deserve another spouse let's allow our stages of life and difficulties and achievements and blessings to become the things we are named for but it can all be so the good things that God has given us and the difficult things God is leading us through this is not the basis of our personality sin wants you and me to listen to what everyone else has to say about who we think we are and who we should be just like Satan did with Eva in the garden, raised the possibility of being someone else before her, do you know why she took it?

It's not because she forgot who she was, she didn't sin because she didn't look at herself, but because she didn't know herself or because she had low self-esteem. esteem in any case she had too much esteem she sinned against God because she leftTo believe the truth of who God was, we don't find out about ourselves by looking at ourselves, we discover who we are by looking and learning from Him. We were made so that if Eve had remembered, she would have believed that God was the one, that she should want to be wise. , that God was pleasing to the eye, that God could satisfy the body, and that before anything was created, God had always been there. so having a correct theology about God would have told her that if he is everything, then how could a created thing make her whole and complete? that if he is eternal and she is not then there is nothing she can do to become In it, it is the faith that comes from looking to Christ that makes us women who are satisfied with being exactly what we were created to be and that is, So where do we go, where do we go to discover the truth of who we are meant to be? and who are we?

We go to God and, while you remind yourself that it is Christ, it is the exact image of the invisible God, if you have Seen Christ, you have seen the Father because they are one and it is this Christ who, being God and the flesh, could not erase the glory of God, he was and is sinless, so not once do you look at him and see any expression of sin towards God or people. Although we have all used our tongues and our thumbs to both bless and curse, he became like a lamb that was led to the slaughter and did not open his mouth but remained silent, he did not need people to say who he was because he knew who was and what he came to do and that was not to save the righteous, people believe that they are as good as God that their works would somehow give them a righteous identity, but no, he came to call sinners to repentance, people who were made in his image and live like the devil, that is all of us because of the way it is in our repentance, it is in turning away from all the lies that we have allowed to define us and turning to God in faith, believing in all the truths it describes. the one who sets us free because you do not know that where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom and that we all with open faces contemplating not our glory but the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another God He is restoring his image in us, so it doesn't matter who they say you are, who you think you are, what matters is do you know who God is?

And if so, believe him when he tells you who you are. should be now I have a poem that first boy whose story in my testimony is one of lesbianism gender confusion I didn't know what it meant to be a woman I didn't think being a woman was a good thing I thought it was a It's true, but it's not a good thing and I had I had to figure out what it meant to be me, what it meant to be a woman in this body, especially when I had a daughter. I thought it would be the first Titus she would read. so I knew I needed to live it before I thought I could preach it, so I wrote this poem because I wanted women made in the image of God: excellent joy and being everything that God made us to be the other day a young woman. brown lady like the melanin in my daughter's eyes said into the microphone that she hated being a woman I wanted to know what it meant to be one and many times I have asked myself the same thing I sought the teaching of such to talk to myself about myself we all learn to be by imitation or indoctrination , mom and the media can't help but train and guide us into carbon copies of themselves so that later knowing who we are or what we should be is really understanding what costumes we wear most days, what skeletons we change into when Adam took his nap.

I was told that a woman cannot really be herself, that is, and for herself it is not clear enough. Her dark enough hair is not a replica of Rapunzel or CB2 Underground Railroad for those types of acting men. They told me that my body is neither mine nor their beauty nor Nate's but I am NOT beautiful so for another woman's son to tell us that I am when did the amount of men reach the image in whose image women are not made and They started harming us so silently maybe that was when we started? believing that the voices have no deity in them.

I was told that a woman should not submit, should not be meek, that that kind of behavior was only for women who treated her voice as a secret. They told me not to be a secret, but to be a mermaid. his machete as I can and honor my opinions at the expense of respect while some men may believe they have freedom from a woman's body has taught how to destroy only depravity could predict we have equally learned how to rip and tear and undo dignity with a simple phrase or a squint is called strong by society they tell us that this is a spine but beautiful is the spine that remembers where it came from unless it is a knowledge of itself is not determined by every wind of doctrine and dust but by God Himself we must unlearn the deep misunderstandings that are compounded as empowerment as freedom liberation has never come through unbelief it has not come to a life in which beauty and lies are found only because of a naked body and the husband who He forgot his name.

We women must be more intelligent. We must be wiser. He must be determined to love the truth regardless of whether it contradicts a dying culture. I tell you that a woman is not stupid unless she chooses to be. If you asked me what a woman is, she would tell you that she is a bone made up of distinctions. That distinguishes her just like the difference between a firefly and a new poem. A woman is not a man. Her vocation is not synonymous with inferiority. Her distinctions are not daughters of patriarchy. They come from a creative God.

Did you see his fingerprints on your hips? The shadow. whistling from her mind when your body became the home of another name that called you mommy while all the joy you forgot could exist a woman submits that before her God her husband her church she is not a woman of weak will or of brittle back but only as strong as humility and faith can identify it they say submission sounds like surfing they say it sounds like something to rebel against I say, isn't it funny how being a servant was repulsive to everyone but God and We wonder why we can't?

I would recognize her face if you asked me what a woman does, I would tell you that she is the sister of everyone, even those whose blood is not from the same roots, but who steal as greedily as her mother's firstborn and that she treats these sisters like to a winter. quilt making sure your mouth doesn't come apart that thing that was made to keep hearts cold woman we are made of upbringing and everything comfortable and that's why we feel so deeply why we cry so suddenly because the emotions that make us women don't make us are unstable but we take refuge in chaos while our ribs once settled we are necessary and nuanced at best but a woman must be no more and no less than what God made to be anything that defines our being that does not shine nor sing to Christ. and her wisdom is a definition destined for flames.

If you asked me what a woman is, I would simply tell you, act, the God who made her, thank you.