Heartfelt Prayer! 10

Imagining yourself as God sees you, which is from an eternal heavenly position and not an earthly one, is quite a challenge to the mind when you first begin. However, the more you practice positioning yourself in Him and believe what He says about you, the easier it becomes. Not only so, you will find your whole outlook on life change. Things look very different when you look at them through heavens eyes.

I think one of the major reasons many believer’s struggle with overcoming sin and other issues is because of their inability to see themselves as God sees them. I don’t blame them as this is an area I also struggled with. The truth is when we identify ourselves with being sinful,weak, failures, etc., before God we weaken our faith and ability to believe Him.

It is not arrogant to believe you are a child of God, which means you are made in His image and likeness. It requires faith, especially in this world so filled with guilt and condemnation, to see yourself the way the Father sees you. Look at Ephesians 5:24-27

… Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (NIV)

Jesus had a great and serious purpose for going to the cross for you. He did not do what He did in vain. He knew what the result would be,and that was to MAKE YOU HOLY. He HAS made you holy. To see yourself as anything less than holy is to diminish the work of His cross in you. Remember,we are dealing with who you are right now and not what you do. We all miss the mark as we journey through this world but that is not the focus of the blog.

However, after creating you as a holy being, a saint, He knew He still had some work to do with you which is to get you to see yourself as holy. He does this through His Word which He uses to cleanse your mind and the way you think, so that He can present you – the image of who you really are– to Himself (not the world) as one who shines with His glory, without faults and flaws, but perfectly blameless in HIS sight.

I think we have all prayed a prayer something like, “Lord I want to be like you, or help me to die to self, or I am unworthy but be merciful to me, etc.,” While these might sound good, they are filled with self-righteousness and not Christ righteousness. Presenting yourself before God in the image of the world is not a good idea. It kills your faith, depresses your heart and confuses your soul. It can leave you in a tangled mess wondering whether you will ever make it before God.

However, Jesus has already MADE you acceptable before God. His goal is to get you to understand who you are in Him and to stand before the Father with boldness. When Scripture says that without holiness no one will see God it does not mean you must never commit a sin, it means that without you being MADE holy and seeing yourself as who you really are, you will not see God. It’s not your outward acts that make you holy, it is your internal faith in Jesus and what He says about you that makes you holy. In this holiness you can see God. This identity with being made holy releases the power of holiness to flow through the rest of your life.

It is from this position, when you stand boldly before the Father, in the knowledge that Jesus has made you righteous and holy, that He in turn positions you in His grace so that you can face all the issues you have in this world and rule over them. This grace teaches you to say “NO!” to every ungodly thing that comes to challenge you.

Remember, you are His beloved, most holy child and He loves you. He is WITH you and He is FOR you. Walk boldly in the knowledge of who you are in Christ and go do some damage to the kingdom of darkness.