identity in Christ

Our lives can be disrupted by our thoughts. Our thoughts can pull us down. Our thoughts can be intrusive. Our thoughts can lie to us. Our thoughts can tell us things that are not true about God or make us fear ourselves or fear other people. Fear is not of God. And when our thoughts are wonky, that's just really, really hard because that's one of the things that if the brain is the part that governs our thoughts, right, then if that is giving us thoughts that are unhelpful, it's really hard, and it's really challenging. When we have these thoughts, we have these feelings. And feelings are just indicators of our environment. They're not right or wrong, they're just feelings.

But then those feelings if we go with them too much or tell ourselves lies because we feel the feelings. Feelings aren't actually facts, so we can get confused there and then our bodies start to take those thoughts and those feelings as if they're real. And so the actions that we do or the way we feel in our comfort level in our bodies, I mean, it's just this whole thing, right? And as Christians we know that there's this whole spiritual being that we are and it's like what are we even dealing with? Like is this a spiritual thing? Is this a physical thing? I'm confused as to what I need to do here. Do I need to pray harder? Do I need to take a vitamin supplement? Do I need to exercise more? Do I need a nap? I mean, someone help me cut through the chaos. That's why I like to say, "It's time for no more crazy lady" because I have been there. I have totally been there and sometimes it's still unclear. But I have ways of discerning now. I have ways of understanding.

One of my key takeaways is that if it is something that is condemning or it is something that is fear causing or judgmental or tying you in knots, it's not of God. It's not of God. God is peace. God is peace. His Holy Spirit one of the fruits of the Spirit is peace, gentleness. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So that's the first tip, is that God's ways are indicated by who He is, by His Holy Spirit. If you aren't feeling love, joy, peace, self-control, patience, having kindness with yourself, gentleness, I mean, those are things that God has for us, and I don't want them to be stolen from you.

And that's what the enemy tries to do. So if you're wondering, am I in a spiritual battle? Well, yes, we wrestle not against flesh and blood. Right? It's a spiritual battle just to be a living human being on the planet Earth. And also, I think I don't want to say this in a wrong way, but it's also a practical battle, too. It's a physical battle. It's an action battle. It's a thought battle. It's an emotional battle.

It is pretty much that we can help when we have these spiritual battles by also having tools for very practical things. Just like if you have a broken arm, you put a cast on it to heal. It was something that was meant to harm a broken arm. But a cast can help it to heal and mend. And I mean, yes, the spiritual is that God gave us wisdom and bones that can heal. So he gave medical wisdom to put it in a cast, and he gave bones that can heal. But also it's a practical skill that allows us to have movement again without pain, that allows us to immobilize the arm until it's totally ready for use again, and then to build up the muscle strength again. Right? So it's practical and spiritual, and sometimes we get the lie that we're not spiritual enough or we're not good enough, or God's mad at us because we're having some more practical, physical, or mental or emotional issues, and we're thinking, what is wrong? I'm praying to get out of this, and I'm trying. And I don't understand why I'm still here and still stuck.

So today I'm going to give you the first part of what I have put together with God's great grace and help, and that is the Empowered Freedom Framework. So, God and I have worked on this together through the years. I didn't know what it was called. I didn't see it all laid out until this summer, where I've really been seeking God's direction for showing me kind of the next steps with the podcast and helping people and the next steps for my family and all of that. And as he's helped me put this together, it is a framework for you to get freedom. It includes things in the way of how I got free. It includes things in the way of education and science and biblical truth and practical skills and spiritual identity. It's a comprehensive educational program that will give you the tools, insights and skills to be able to heal, to be able to take back your power that is rightfully yours from Jesus.

To start we're going to talk about peach pie. I don't know if you like peach pie or not. If you don't like peach pie, I want you to insert whatever pie you do like. If you don't like pie, insert cake. If you don't like sweets, insert soup. Insert a recipe. I'm using the peach pie metaphor because I like alliteration and they both start with the letter P.

To have a peach pie, we need a baker. That baker is someone who knows exactly how to design this peach pie. This baker knows what to put into the peach pie. To make it a peach pie, they might put in some peaches, and they might put in some cinnamon, and they might put in some flour, and they might put, I don't know, whatever else they put, butter or nutmeg. Whatever they put in there, they have a recipe, and they know how it's going to turn out because they followed the recipe. The unique ingredients are in there for this perfect peach pie. See what I did there? More alliteration for the perfect peach pie, okay? And that perfect peach pie is priceless. I mean, that perfect peach pie is so priceless because it is just perfectly made, perfectly designed by the baker. And that peach pie has everything it needs to be successful in delighting people's tummies in delighting their taste buds in filling a need for a sweet after a satisfying meal. It's inherently perfect as a peach pie, and its purpose is from the baker.

Now, as you probably have figured out, you are the peach pie, right? And God is the baker. He has perfectly put the ingredients into you for the purposes and outcomes that He has for you to do in this world. You are a beautiful, perfect peach pie in every way, and you are made to shine and do your job as you were designed with the unique ingredients for the perfect purpose and just it's spectacular. You are a unique creation, and the world needs you.

And God destined you for such a time as this. So that's the first part of my empowered freedom framework is realizing the story of you, of who you are, and that you are made by God, fearfully and wonderfully as a masterpiece. Here's the second part, though. Sometimes the story gets messed up. Someone tries to rewrite it, rewrite the recipe, they start to mess with the ingredients. These things that were good, like trusting, caring, showing vulnerability, connecting, being real, praying, trusting God, having a sound mind, a restful body, gentle emotions that are easy and light came along and messed with the recipe. It was like an evil person who was jealous and wanted to stop the recipe from being perfect. And what happened is the pie was perfect and all the ingredients were perfect when this devious thief came and stole from the baker, stole from the pie, put some ingredients in there that caused pain or that contradicted the good stuff, or that left some space for doubt as to whether they should be following the right recipe or not, it caused chaos.

Just like in a peach pie, if you put something else into it or not enough of something into it or too much of something into it, you're going to get different results. That didn't mean the original recipe was wrong. That didn't mean the original baker was wrong. That means that someone tampered with the ingredients, someone tampered with that perfect story, that perfect recipe, and that's the enemy. And the enemy can tamper in the lives of God's creation, through hurtful relationships, through bad experiences, through tragedy, through trauma, through gaslighting, from parents, through abusive marriage relationships, through bullying or insecurity, through hardships. The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy.

But God, through Jesus, has already overcome the world, and we have the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead living in us. So the death that the enemy meant for evil, God will turn for good and redeem. And that peach pie will now be like a super peach pie. By the time God gets done with this, the original baker with the original recipe, He's taken those original ingredients and gotten rid of the muck. With all of those things that were not wanted, or additives or things that were stolen, the icky, God comes along and takes what the enemy meant for evil and turns it for good. Now, maybe the peaches are too sweet or not too sweet, but now maybe the peaches are so sweet, and God adds praline topping to it or some caramel sauce or some whipped cream, and it's like, even better than before. God makes it look like He had it planned all along well, because He knows what's going to happen.

He knows he's not going to let anything happen to you that He can't redeem, because He is a redemptive God. And He didn't want that junk to happen to you, but He wants the victory of you being who you are made to be. And sometimes those things that happen to us are the very areas where we overcome and shine and do even more than what the enemy was trying to stop us from doing in the first place.

That's why you're hearing from me today. I never thought that I would be able to get through my low self-esteem, my anxiety, my panic, my post-traumatic stress disorder, my obsessive-compulsive disorder. I mean, if you had seen me 30 years ago in my 20s, this would have been a whole different person you would have seen. And yet I was still the same person with all the right ingredients. But I had had some very toxic experiences in relationships, and I needed healing.

I needed the original baker, the one with the original recipe, to come in and supercharge my recipe by putting in even more of the wonderful things he had put in me through his power. The pralines and the pecans and the caramel sauce and the whipped cream. And it almost makes it worth all of the struggles that I went through. I don't know if I could say that I'd prefer to have still gone through them, but I am so glad to be on the other side. And I am so glad God redeemed it. And I am so glad that I am now here to help you get that extra recipe, that extra special sauce. As you break free from that awfulness that was trying to distort your recipe, you are fearfully and wonderfully, made a unique masterpiece no one compares to you. God has good for you.

God will redeem what the enemy stole, and He will make it all work together for good. So it'll look like it was part of the plan all along, because God is a good God, and He has got you. And He has got you with pralines and caramel sauce and whipped cream and even a cherry on top with a dash of cinnamon, I mean, God is that good. And if you're suffering right now and your story is more like the recipe of things that were tainted or stolen or harmed, where too many dashes of something bad were added in, or maybe someone dropped your pie on the floor and it crumbled, so to speak, God is a God who restores.

I think this is more of a prevalent thing that comes up from time to time when working with Christian women in the counseling room or in coaching type things. And that is that they are the exception, that they are an exception to the way God works, that they are the exception to how things go or what they can trust in.

They are the exception as far as not being good enough. And so that lie keeps them from stepping into all of the power that's there for them. It's like being in a candy shop as a kid and someone says, go wild. It's all yours. And we just leave all the candy. Like, oh, no, I've got to go home. And we just leave all of the things there in this candy shop, and there's so much power. We have power in gumballs.

We have power in those cinnamon hard candies. We have power in chewing gum and whatever else you could think of. Twizzlers and Twix and Hershey bars. Whatever. Okay? There's power in this metaphor. If each of those candy bars had a power, then you'd get something good from each one of them, right?

So in the Bible, there are promises, and each one of them has something good for you. But if you don't pick it up and you don't chew on it and you don't claim it as yours, and you don't use it for what it's intended to be used for, you're letting power just kind of be left on the table, left in the candy store, left not impacting your life. It's like walking out of that candy store.

It's walking away from this power that's already yours. And that is such a common misconception of how it works. We have to be good enough for God to approve of us. We are not good enough. We're faulty. We are less than. Those are the things that a lot of times Christian women come into care for, and they're so not based on truth or reality. I just talked to a woman this morning who was saying that she was hoping she made some sort of impact in the world.

Well, how could she not? Like, you don't have to hope for it. Just do it. It's already something you do. Every time you do something, you're making an impact, right? If I hold the door open for somebody, I'm making an impact. Don't qualify those things as whether they're big enough or good enough or whether they're too bad stuff does make an impact. It might be neutral impact. It might be a positive impact might be a negative impact. You're making an impact.

But the better question would be what am I going to do today to intentionally take steps to make an impact in an area that God's calling me to or in an area I'd like to? What would that be? I will make an impact. I do make an impact and I can choose to do that even more. I can choose to do that more times. I can choose to do that more broadly. Maybe the impact is I buy back to school supplies for a kid or I could fill a bus or I could ask a bus rental company, hey, would you come here and then put out flyers and all the community can come and fill a bus. Fill a bus with school supplies. Okay? Whatever level you do, whatever you do on is fine. You're having an impact.

Don't let the lies of the enemy minimize. Don't let the way you feel about your capabilities minimize. God is not a God who didn't equip you, who messed up, who didn't make you right. Jesus is not a savior whose blood didn't cover it all. It covered all. And if you accept Jesus as your savior and live with Him as your savior, it is a done deal. You are good enough because He is good enough. And God made you!

So you've got things good going for you. Don't believe the lies. You already are saved. You already are valuable. You already are enough as the beautiful human creation that God poured into you and the fact that you've chosen God and He is in you and greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world and God's got you. So you can definitely say I am enough because you were purchased with a valuable price.

When people think those promises in the Bible don't apply to me, yes they do. They may not be helpful to you if you don't believe them, if you don't let them apply to you, but they are there for the taking. Just like the candy. Only this is like a refillable candy store, right? You can take and it'll just keep replenishing. You can go back for more. You can ask your heavenly Father for what you need more of. You have resources and power and knowing that you're not going to use it up. It's an endless supply from God. You can get the things that you need to do, the things that you're doing, things that you're called to. And the way you get that is by believing in God's Word and His truth.

I encourage you to go take a look at scripture. It's important to know the tools in your toolbox. Truth, power, substance those already are things you can bring to the table because they've already been given to you.  If you doubt yourself, please stop. That doesn't do anybody any favors. That's like saying, oh, the enemy is a bully, and, well, the bully said mean things, so now I can't have fun playing.

Oh, what do you do with a bully? You tell your daddy. You tell a teacher, get the big guy in charge. And you say, I don't like that bully. And then what's? The parents say, don't let him bully you. Okay? Right. I don't have to stay to be bullied. I don't have to engage with fights that I'm not a part of, that God has already won. I can be powerful. I can make an impact. I can be free in Christ because of who God is. And make those affirmations and those declarations in your life. 

Go take on the day.