“The mature believer is God-conscious, and ever-conscious of what God’s Word says about him and to him.” - Kenneth E. Hagin
This brings us to a very simple and foundational truth in the form of a question, what does God’s Word say about me and to me?
Let’s spend some time looking in God’s Word to determine the answer to this question. There is another book I’d like you to add to your “to read” list and that is, In Him by Kenneth E. Hagin. We will cover some great truths today about who you are in Christ and what you can have because of Him but there’s no way we can cover it all.
There are three major truths from God’s Word about yourself that I want you to learn:
You are valuable.
You are full of beauty.
You are deeply loved as you are.
1. You are valuable
In the book of Ephesians, Paul is writing to the church of Ephesus, and all scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit for us today, too. Ephesians 2:8-10 says, “Saving is all His (Jesus’) idea, and all His work. All we do is trust Him enough to let Him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join Him in the work He does, the good work He has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.”
We learn a few things from these verses: God made us. He saved us. He wants us. These are extremely powerful truths!
I love to go to the beach and watch the ocean. The thing is, I can’t see the whole thing in one gaze because it’s so big! God made that. The same God that made all these beautiful and big creations also made you. And, He not only made you, but He saved you. Why? Because He wanted you.
2. You are full of beauty.
There is a book of the Bible where God really shows Himself, (His true colors as we might say) where He describes how beautiful we are in His eyes.
Song of Solomon 4:1, “You’re so beautiful, my darling, so beautiful, and your dove eyes are veiled by your hair as it flows and shimmers…”
The verses go on and on about our natural beauty to the Lord.
In Proverbs, we see how beautiful we are to the Lord when we obey Him, accept correction, use wisdom, and do the right thing. Proverbs 19:20 says, “Take good counsel and accept correction- that’s the way to live wisely and well.”
While we are naturally beautiful to the Lord as He so vividly describes in Song of Solomon, beauty that matters even more to the Lord is found in our hearts. This is a model for how we should live- the age old saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” because as humans, we do categorize beauty and see things way differently than God does.
Proverbs 21:2 says, “We justify our actions by appearances; God examines our motives.” He cares much more about why you do the things you do even more so than the action itself.
3. You are deeply loved as you are.
Isaiah 43:1-5 is such a beautiful passage about God’s love and mission to redeem His creation: “But now, God's Message, the God who made you in the first place, Jacob, the One who got you started, Israel: "Don't be afraid, I've redeemed you. I've called your name. You're mine.
When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you. When you're in rough waters, you will not go down. When you're between a rock and a hard place, it won't be a dead end -
Because I am God, your personal God, The Holy of Israel, your Savior. I paid a huge price for you: all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in!
That's how much you mean to me! That's how much I love you! I'd sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you.
"So don't be afraid: I'm with you…”
Friend, we have all sinned- we were born into the world as sinners because we were born of the sin lineage from the very beginning after the first sin occurred in Genesis.
Sin is real and make no mistake about it, God hates it, and for good reason- it absolutely destroys lives. But, He didn’t throw in the towel on humanity after the first sin, or the second, or the 1,041st- He had a plan from the beginning for redemption, which is Jesus Christ.
When my dad preached, he would always start with John 3:16, “This is how much God loved the world: He gave His Son, His one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in Him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.”
My dad would always say, “John 3:16 is where it all began” and I can definitely see why. This scripture is full of the deep love of God for us as His kids- He wanted us restored back to Him so much that He willingly gave up His Son to go through terrible pain and suffering for us.
In this world, we go through many hard things no doubt, and Jesus told us in John 6:33 that we would, but none of us have ever experienced anything like Jesus did. I’m so thankful for His blood that He shed. Amen?
These are three foundational truths that we need deep down on the inside of us before we can learn why growing spiritually is so important.
I recently heard a quote given by Pastor Lynette Hagin and she didn’t know who originally said it, but I really love it, “Grace is how much God loves you. Holiness is how much you love God.”
I’ve heard so many times that we can’t talk too much about God’s grace because it’ll give people a license to sin. First of all, what in the world is a license to sin? That’s not even a thing. Second of all, that quote sums it up perfectly: when we have a relationship with God, we don’t want to sin because we don’t want to hurt Him.
Developing a relationship with God is growing spiritually.
You didn’t marry your spouse only knowing about them, you also spent time with them to get to know them. It’s the same principle with God- yes, we can know about Him but in order to grow in love with Him, we have to spend time with Him.
We know things about Him like: He is a waymaker, a mountain mover, a door opener, and all those things are true but what about on a more personal level?
So, how can we begin to develop this relationship? What we’ll focus on today is a huge way to get to know God: by His Word, reading the Bible.
A lot of people just “want to hear from God”, but what they aren’t prioritizing is a way that God has already provided for all of us to hear from Him- the entire 66 books of the Bible are written for us to get to know Him and hear Him speak to us.
I’ve been saved basically my whole life and in church since I was just six weeks old. I asked Jesus to come into my heart at a very young 4 years of age. But that doesn’t mean Jesus has been my Friend for all these years.
In truth, I cannot say that Jesus was my Friend the majority of those years. I have always had a heart for Jesus and wanted to do the “right” thing, but that’s also part of my personality is that I don’t like getting in trouble and I don’t like being called out, so I can’t in confidence say that it’s by the conviction of my faith that I’ve made right decisions.
Looking back on all the wrong decisions I made solidifies that theory- I have many things in my past that were unholy, that didn’t line up with His Word, and some of those sins were on repeat for years.
I recognized it was sin, I would ask for forgiveness, but I didn’t have true repentance because I didn’t have a true relationship with God.
I do believe by grace I was saved at just 4 years old and should I have died, like I could have anytime in between then and now, I have confidence I would be in Heaven.
Growing up spiritually is Heavenly but it’s also very earthly focused. A decision to accept Jesus as our Savior gets us into Heaven and takes the power of death away by releasing us from the eternal doom of Hell, but it doesn’t automatically have us experience and live in all the things the Bible promises to us as believers.
As believers, we have a job to do- we have a covenant with God, which is a partnership. He has promised amazing things for us, like abundance, and healing, and power from the Holy Spirit to do even greater works than Jesus did here on the earth, but those things don’t just automatically happen when we accept Jesus.
Right away, we are given those things as benefits, but just like you can have a will of inheritance and never enact it, you have these incredible promises that will lie dormant until you grow up spiritually.
Knowing, truly knowing, the Father is a big way to grow spiritually. I didn’t want to read my Bible but I wanted a relationship with God. I was honest with Him one day and told Him this- He knew what was in my heart anyway, so I might as well just be honest.
The Holy Spirit told me exactly what to do- He said to start reading my Bible every day. Whether I felt like it or not, I opened my Bible and began to read every day. I don’t know how long it took, but I can tell you that I began to absolutely crave the Word of God.
His Word is alive! It is dripping with life. I can read the same scripture one day and read it again another day and see something totally different- there is no other book that does that.
If you are unsure of where to start with the Bible, I suggest Psalm in the Old Testament and John in the New Testament. I also suggest obtaining a version of the Bible that you can understand! I love The Message.
David, the author of the book of Psalm, is so honest and candid about his struggles but yet, so reverent and worshipful of the truth no matter what is going on.
John, the author of the New Testament, teaches about Jesus and shares His ministry in a very tangible way.
I’ll leave us today with a scripture in 1 Peter 2:2, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of
the word, that ye may grow thereby:"
Kenneth E. Hagin in the book, Growing Up Spiritually says, “Here in Peter the Bible speaks about Christians being "newborn babes." No one is born a full grown human naturally and physically. They are born babies, and then they grow up. Similarly no one is born a full grown Christian. You are born a spiritual babe, and then you grow up.”
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