overcoming lies about your identity

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.

If you're here, you're likely a Christian woman, right? That's like a given, right? And so, what makes us Christian women? Romans 10:9 says that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart, God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified. It is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. So when we know Jesus as our savior, then we want to live for him and like him, and we've died to ourselves and therefore we serve him. Right?

So those are like foundational concepts of salvation, but why then do we, particularly as Christian women who believe this and have that power, still end up with shaky voices, feeling like we can't speak our truth or feeling uncertain about ourselves, not feeling good enough, feeling worried about what other people think, having anxiety or physical sensations that come along with anxiety or have mental junk getting in our way?

The reason being, obviously, because we're in a fallen world and we're also in a situation where the enemy wants to come and mess with us, and so we don't want to let him mess with us, and that's something we don't have to let him do. So, I'm going to go through this as we think about those lies that you in particular may have kind of nagging you in the background. Raise your hand if any of those sound like things that go through your head on a pretty regular basis.

Yeah, It's like universal, and it's so dumb for it to be so universal. It's like the enemy is not that creative, right? So, it's not dumb that we feel how we feel, but if everybody is having this, it's like we should be able to see this is not real because I'll bet you can look at all the other women in here and think they have something important of God in them and have something important to contribute. If I were talking to them, I'd encourage them and tell them how great they are. Right? And you guys have done that. So, what makes you any different?

That's the lie of the enemy, that we're different. That's the lie that we're the ones who don't know what we're talking about, we're going to embarrass ourselves, we're not a good enough Christian, or whatever those lies are.

I just want to encourage you that that is the enemy's boringness as far as he's not very creative. It's the same old lies. It's the same old junk. He's all about comparison, and there really is no comparison in Christ, right? We're individuals. He's all about one-upping people and shame and guilt. That's not of God either. When we're aware of it and you realize, each of us realizes that we are not the odd-one-out (as in nothing new under the sun), and that God died for us, and we are saved because of Him, and we have His power, that's where we really can stand in that power.

So, this is a "both/and" thing, right? Because this membership is off of a podcast that's Mental Health for Christian Women. Well, mental health for Christian women is an important concept because there are mental health issues, there are emotional health issues, and there are things like nervous systems that have gotten lots of messages from trauma in the past and things that make us more prone to some of this junk that we're thinking. As a coach and as a therapist, I can say this and also say the other, which is feelings and thoughts matter, and yet feelings and thoughts don't matter. Both are true. They totally matter in the sense that we need to be aware of them. We need to take them captive. We need to be aware of what they're trying to tell us, because God made us with thoughts and feelings, but we can't be ruled by them, and we can't let them lie to us. They are not the most important thing, and they don't define us. When you look at it through that, it's, again, one of those concepts that I say a lot, which is "both/and" because they're important, and yet they are not the most important thing. They are not the truth tellers. They are not the things that tell you your identity. They are not the things that tell you the truth about yourself. They merely tell you perceptions of the experience that you're having in your thoughts and your emotions at that point, but they are not based on your identity in Christ.

Now, it'd be great if they always lined up like that and you could feel confident in your body, thoughts, and feelings. This all lines up in my identity in Christ. Ideally, that would be great, but because that's not how we always live in this world, it's very hard to do that because we do have bodies, but God made the bodies intelligently to protect us and help us. We need to do the "both/and" and pay attention to the thoughts and feelings as well as heal the wounds, get them tended to, whether that's counseling, going to a good friend, having prayer being done over us, or all of them. It's all good, but we need to take that intentional time to heal and to be aware of what we're noticing.

So, in that way, it's important, but here's why it's not the end all be all. First, your identity, your power comes from God. You've probably heard me say this before, but Romans 8:11, says that the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you as a Christian woman, which means the spirit that can overcome even death is in you and in Him, we live and move and have our being. That's Acts 17:28. Therefore, the power of God that is in you and that you live out of is God. You are breathed from God. In Genesis 2:7, it says, then the Lord God formed the human of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils breath of life, and the human became a living creature. That naturally goes into this next one, which is 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you? (again, that power in you, that breath in you) whom you have received from God, you are not your own. You were bought at a price. So, if you are not your own, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And I say this to myself as well: How dare we think that we're not good enough? That's like a smack in the face in a sense, if someone says, no, I've given you everything. I've died for you. I've raised again. I've given you that power, and I know who you are, and you are mine, and I breathed into you. Who in the world are we to say, I can't do it? I'm not good enough? Oh, I should shrink back because what will other people think? Oh, I don't know. I'm too scared right now.

It doesn't mean that we don't have to deal with those things that hurt us or that God cares. He's there. He sees our tears. He bottles them up. He finds us precious and dependent on Him, of course. But at the same time, it's kind of prideful to think that we're not good enough because it's almost saying we have knowledge against what God says about us, and so wouldn't that be sin?

Maybe we need to get out of our own way and say, okay, let's take the stuff that's ensnaring us, those thoughts and those feelings, and instead turn them back to Christ and go, no, I know who I am in the Lord. I know that I have the breath of God in me and the power of the Holy Spirit. So then having that awareness, we get to put that towards our feelings, and that's where we get to take back our power. We get to realize that, as Matthew 5:14-16 says, we are the light of the world, a city that is set on a hill, that cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. So, when we are that lamp and let our light shine, we are glorifying God and that's our purpose. That's why we're here. It all points back to Him.

If you ever doubt whether God can use you, or whether you are good enough, or whether others know better than you, or whether your voice and thoughts and life matters, remember what Psalm 139:14 says that you are fearfully and wonderfully made, that God's works are wonderful, and we know that full well. If you would know that for your neighbor here, know it for yourself; you are that wonderful creation.

When the enemy tries to lie to you and 1 Peter 5:8-9 says that's the case: Be sober, be vigilant because he enemy tries to roar like a lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith. Don't be one of those he may just. No, that's that old lie. Not true. I'm going to stand against that in Jesus' name. I know who I am In Christ! The enemy's going to say, she's no fun. She won't play anymore!