God made you!

This truth we understand from an early age. However, as we face the world around us, do we forget our identity? What happens when family, business, culture tries to pressure you to be something that you are not? Mike Glenn in The Gospel of Yes has some great thoughts on this in Chapter 10. You need to pick up this book. Here are some quotes:

"What if Christ's top priority is not to convince us that we are abject failures but to reveal how beautiful we are in him?

"If Jesus is not as interested in hammering us about our sin as in restoring us to the people God created us to be, would we act differently? live differently? be different toward others? Would we find in this truth a way to change, to live differently, to become a new person?"

"No experience or encounter, no outside influence can tell you who you are. Only Christ can do that."

"The Christian teaching is that people are extremely valuable indeed. But our value is not based on the promise of exceptional achievement or a positive feeling about ourselves. It is grounded in the reality of who God is and what he has done for us in Christ."

"That means sometimes you will say no to things that are important and good but are not good or best for you."

In regards to parenting, he writes, "We would help them see why the behavior in question was not going to help them achieve their goals to become their best selves in Christ."

"If you know what you are worth, you will no longer live a way that devalues who you are. You will not give in to things that cheapen what God has paid the highest price to save."