Seeing Yourself Clearly

If I were Catholic, I would have to give up a room in my house and turn it into a confessional. Seriously, ya all, I am a sinner and I sin all the time. It’s not that I want to sin. In fact, I really don’t want to sin. I want to do everything right and follow all of God’s rules. I even make promises to God like that I’m going to stop judging others; I’m going to stay focused on His purpose for me and not get distracted; I’m not going to gossip; I’m going to put God first. I try to keep these promises but no matter how hard I try to be perfect I fail. Why? Because no matter how hard I try, I can never be perfect.

We all know the saying “nobody’s perfect”. But for some reason I really want to be. I have a perfectionist streak that defines virtually aspect of my life. The Bible tells us over and over again that we are sinners. But I don’t want to accept that. I want to be perfect–especially in my Christian walk. I want to work hard, do good deeds and know that I am following all of God’s rules for being a good Christian. When I don’t follow these rules or I break my promises to God, that little voice of the perfectionist starts screaming out at me what a terrible person I am and how I can’t seem to do anything right. For years I have defined how I see myself by that voice. But this weekend I had one of those moments that Oprah would call a “light bulb moment”. When I was talking to a friend, he told me that voice was probably the work of the Enemy. (Okay, I don’t want you to think I’ve gone crazy here but if we believe God is real then we have to believe that the force that works against Him is real too. Right?)

With this one statement, God worked through Erik to show me that the way I see myself is not how God sees me. What the enemy is doing is making me judge myself as a Christian based on my performance and that goes against God’s word. I don’t need to work hard enough or be good enough to get a spot in heaven. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works.” Ephesians 2:8-9. I simply need to believe in Jesus!

Because Jesus has already died for all of our sins, God looks at those who believe in Christ differently. My sins are already forgiven so He looks at me as a person who has no more sins. Get this, He looks at me as perfect! Yes, I might sin, I might break my promises to Him, but He still sees me as perfect. I don’t have to work so hard to try to be perfect because I already am. I don’t need to listen to that voice in my head. I need to listen to God and see myself as He sees me. That is something that can reassure me and give me peace–peace in my relationship with God, peace with my life and peace with who I am.

My prayer today is that everyone who reads this article see themselves as God sees them and that this brings peace to their lives.