World Christian Leadership And Training Ministry

Personal awareness is who we are in the eyes of God. What does God say about us as a person, as a man or a woman? "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you (set aside for a purpose); I ordained you a prophet (leader) to the nations." - (Jeremiah 1:5)

"The Word of God is the Source" . 




God already knows who we are and we must endeavor to find out through His Word. God said, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified (set aside for a purpose) you; I ordained you a prophet (leader) to the nations" (Jeremiah 1:5). I know God was talking to Jeremiah specifically, but He was talking to all "believers" collectively. Just as He was encouraging Jeremiah, God is encouraging us to understand who we are in His eyes.

As Christians, individually, we "are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28 ). We are "predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. Moreover, whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified" (Romans 8:29-30). God's plan is in place, all we have to do is align with it.

We must know who we are in Christ. It was written down for us so we cannot miss it. However, who we are as a person is not written down, for the most part, so we must enter into the journey of life in order to find out. God does first in the natural and then in the spiritual (I Corinthians 15:45 -47). The more we know about ourselves in the natural, the better we will understand who we truly are in the spiritual.

I do not believe there is any other way to discover who we are as person, except through the Word of God. If we compare our lives before we received Jesus to our lives after we received Jesus, then the picture should become clear about what we must do to find out who we are. What old beliefs did we bring with us into our new life with Jesus? What old beliefs do we refuse to change in our new life with Jesus? Jesus will not take them away or even make us change them, but we will not experience the full blessings of God until we do change them. Our Relationships will continue to fail and our walk with the Lord will be sporadic until we do change. Transforming and renewing our minds is not a suggestion, but a command from God.

Who we are is a dynamic process. Am I becoming someone different each year of my life? Am I becoming more complete as a person? It is up to us to make the necessary changes because at any given time, our lives are exactly the way we want them to be. No one else is doing our lives for us. It was the decisions we made in the past that produced the present we are living at this moment. If we are making present decisions based on past hurts, then we will continue to be hurt and to hurt other people. Do not allow your past to dictate your present.

God is only in the present. We must focus on the present when making decisions in order to hear from God. All of our beliefs are based on things or information we already know. If we want to change our beliefs, then we must do what God told us to do, and that is to transform and renew our minds. Our failure to change is a choice, a conscious decision, not a circumstance of who we are. You cannot, "put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved" (Matthew 9:17 ). By choosing to be an old wineskin, you are doomed to repeat, repeat, repeat the past.

We need other people in our lives in order to discover who we are. We need their feedback. Their feedback can keep us from making ourselves up. It is through building Relationships with other people that we are able to grow and mature as people. Those who avoid Relationships do not change. You can be apart from them for 10 years or more, but they will be exactly they same in their beliefs, thinking, speaking, and actions the next time you see them. They always have an excuse for their mistakes because it (their behavior) is always someone else's fault. They are loners who do not trust anyone. No matter how much people try to help them, they will not receive it. They are never open to consul, and feedback is considered a personal attack on their character. Their only possibility for being healed is through a relationship with another person.

Have you ever taken one of those self-analysis surveys? You fill out the forms and you get back a printout of an assessment of who you are. When people read it, they are often amazed at how accurate some of the data is concerning their lives. I am amazed at their amazement. Who filled out the self-assessment survey? Who did they think the printout would be about? Some of these surveys will even tell you what your personality is, but is it accurate? The problem with self-analysis is that it always tainted because it is locked in to our belief system.

Our beliefs about ourselves are not necessarily real or true, they are just beliefs. Beliefs are made up of thoughts that we have acted on. However, the reality of who we are must come to us from outside of us, through feedback. We need feedback from other people to tell us who we are and to validate our beliefs about ourselves. Feedback is one the three people skills needed for building healthy relations.