Who Am I? In Winters Ear Edition

IDENTITY ‘WHO ARE YOU?’ IN WINTERS EAR EDITION

Often times our greatest battles are not with people around us, the greatest battle is not with our teachers and professors, class mates, coworkers, families and friends, but one of the greatest wars that we will wage, is war within ourselves. We spend over 14 hours a day in a conscious war. A war with decisions, and every decision we make is directly tied with who we are as a person.

There are certain things that we won’t drink, due to who we are as a person. Example being, some people steer away from carbonated drinks and high fructose corn syrup best on their beliefs about its effect on your body. Some people don’t eat certain foods based on a belief on how it affects you. Some have crazy superstitions, I was reading about some of the top 10 craziest superstitions in the word. I read about one in Damascus, Damascus in Aramaic means a ‘well watered place’ well the citizens are so nervous about keeping it that way, that they have banned Yo-Yo’s because they believe that it will bring a drought. In fact they believe so strongly in this that they also banned yo-yos in the entire country of Syria. No matter if these beliefs are based on scientific evidence, or not, people follow them based on who they are as a person.

So where am I going with this whole concept, of decisions, beliefs, and who were are as individuals, well because these are directly tied to how we carry out our life.

Depending on who I identify myself as a person, determines what I believe, my belief then determines my decisions. But don’t take my word for it Proverbs 23:7, as a man thinketh in his heart so is he.  

So depending on who I think I am, determines the decisions I make, which in turn determines who I am becoming. Act  is the blossom of your thoughts, joy or suffering are its fruits, and so we eat the fruit of what we have decided to grow.

So how is it that we learn to live out an identity that is in fact not only the best us, but is the truest us.

For the sake of time I will attempt to break this down into 3 points or steps:

1.     The first step is to strip off the weight that so easily entangles us.

a.     False perceptions

b.     Others expectations

c.     Deep rooted myths

2.     Embrace the journey

a.     We do not have discovery overnight, yet there is a journey that takes place when we consider the discovery and mastery of who we are.

3.     Change you mirrors

a.     We often compare ourselves to what we see on TV, Magazines

b.     Use the bible as a mirror.

Next week we will continue our series on Identity as we discuss why this matters?