Month: March 2021

  • You Are a Daughter of The King

    As I hold my sweet, 6 week old baby boy, I can’t help but smile and chuckle at the fact that as a boy-mom (now times three) I am completely outnumbered. The only other female in the house is our diva chihuahua Lucy.  My oldest boys are fifteen and eleven so my house is often home base for noisy hang sessions playing Xbox, making reaction videos on YouTube, and eating tons of pizza. Family movie night usually involves an action/adventure or alien movie, so catching a good rom-com happens on my own time. I absolutely love being a boy-mom and look forward to more noisy days with trains, trucks and Legos with our new baby boy.

    Recently though, I got to babysit my 3 year old niece and she LOVES all the girly princess movies. My time had come. She was getting over a cold, so the prescription for the day was to lay low and watch some princess movies, take a nap–totally my kind of day. As a boy-mom, I’ve never seen Frozen, or Moana or Brave or any of the fun princess movies. She showed me all her favorites while we snuggled on the couch. It was so much fun.

    As we watched and talked about our favorite princesses, I realized they all had something in common. While they were all royalty, they also struggled at times to live fully into their identity as princesses. It felt oddly relatable.

    We are children of God, daughters of the Most High King. 1 John 3:1 says “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”  Romans 8:14-17 tells us that God loves us so much he calls us his children and co-heirs with Christ. We are in a sense, princesses. I’m not talking about Disney princesses (although if I can get woodland critters to clean my house while I sing, I will count it as a total win). But like the Disney princesses, it can be hard to live fully into that identity.

    On my best days, I embrace my calling to live in relationship with my Heavenly Father, the King of Kings. I get lost in His grace and love, and marvel that He chooses me, just as I am. He shapes me to be more like him, to represent Him as a member of His family. By the power of the Holy Spirit, I walk and talk like a Daughter of the King.

    It’s harder to live this out when I am feeling tired, busy, hangry or anxious. When I’m hard-pressed for patience, it’s challenging to walk and talk like a daughter of the King. My husband and kids do not always get my best, in fact on my worst days they get the distracted, distant or short-tempered version of me. If I’m not careful, I’ll begin to operate on my own strength and my own discernment. Then I find that I can’t muster grace when it is needed and I carry myself in a manner that is less than what God has invited me to–because I’m trying to do it all on my own.

    But when I intentionally slow down and spend time with the One who made me, I remember the Princess that I am in Him. I remember that I have access to all the resources and power of the Kingdom of God. He fills my heart with peace and wisdom so that I can discern between what seems urgent and what is truly important. By the power of the Holy Spirit, I can speak life to my family and friends. Not only does my outlook change but even my countenance is lifted. Allowing God’s love to permeate my mind, restores my soul and my true identity in Christ. I can once again see the great love that He lavishes on me as his child. And I believe once again, that is who I am.

    As you go once more into the fray, and the day seems to be running you instead of the other way around, when you find you struggling to lean into your identity as God’s princess, stop and reevaluate. Are you leaning on your own strength and wisdom or on the infinite love and wisdom of the Most High King? Are you tapping into Kingdom resources or operating on your own limited supply?

    Dear friend, slow down and let Him care for you. Spend time with Him in prayer and worship and be reminded of who you are in Him. And when your cup is full, share it with others. Let Jesus be seen in your joy, in how you walk and talk, as a co-heir with Christ and daughter of a King.

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  • You Are Loved

    Do you know and believe that God loves you? It can be a tough question but it’s one that bears answering honestly.

    So many of us are walking around acknowledging in our minds that God loves us, but not fully believing it. We want God to love us, but believing that He already does, is a whole different exercise. Much of believing and experiencing God’s love, is affected by our own limited human perspective.

    “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us.”

    1 John 4:15-19

    HE. LOVED. US. FIRST.

    Not “we said all the right things, did all the right stuff, used all the right spiritual hashtags on Instagram and volunteered at all the right charity events, and THEN God loved us.”

    Before we did a thing, He loved us first. Breathe that in a sec. Look at Jesus as an example–when He was about to be baptized at the very beginning of His ministry, before he had done any official ministry, God’s voice from heaven claims Jesus as His own and declares that He is pleased with Him. He hasn’t even gotten out of the water, let alone healed anyone, yet God declares that he loves Jesus and is pleased with him, simply because He is His Son.

    And His love for us is no different. We are His children and before we ever do a thing, God loves us first. That is a love we can rely on.

    I love reading the book of John because we see the confidence John had in God’s love. Throughout the gospel of John, he has the audacity to describe himself as the “disciple whom Jesus loved”. I must admit that for years I found this off putting because it seemed so bizarre for him to speak about himself in 3rd person. To be honest, it even sounded a bit arrogant to me.

    In reality, John was simply stating that he was God’s beloved. When he talked about himself as the disciple whom God loved, he was carefully choosing words to describe his core identity. His identity was completely founded on His relationship with Jesus. Jesus was the defining relationship in his life.

    Often we flip it don’t we? We describe ourselves not as the disciple whom Jesus loved, but as the disciple who loves Jesus. We strive to earn His love based on how much we love Him. In our striving, we miss the bigger picture. When we focus instead on Jesus’ love for us, it’s no longer all about us but about Him. When we describe ourselves as one loved by God, it is a truth about who we are, defined by God, not by us. We no longer have to prove our love, our value or our worth.

    It gets even better. In an episode of the More To Be podcast, we recently learned something really cool about the phrase “The disciple whom Jesus loved”. Jennifer Dukes Lee tells us in this podcast that the Greek can literally be translated as “the disciple whom Jesus keeps on loving”.

    His love for us isn’t conditional. That’s why John could be so confident and assured of his own identity in Christ. He knew there was nothing He could do to earn Jesus’ love, and yet love was perpetually given. As John spent time with Jesus, he observed and learned that Jesus is love. And that he is one loved by Jesus. Period.

    In just a sweep through the gospels, we can see time and time again how much Jesus loved the people he came to save. Through the story of Mary and her sister Martha as he stood with them in their grief, with the woman with on-going bleeding, who he took the time to heal, even though he was busy, to bring restoration to her physically as well as emotionally. For Mary Magdalene who he came alongside at the grave to call out her name in her grief and give her great purpose. Jesus wasn’t concerned with appearance or what was most efficient, he was concerned about each and every person he encountered. He wanted them to walk away feeling like they were the most precious person in the world and he would do anything for them.

    This verse in Ephesians captures this idea of fully experiencing Christ’s love:

    May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”

    Ephesians 3:19

    As I see Jesus interact with women in the Bible, I see Him relating to me as well. Tender, patient, kind and cherishing me not as just a person who is loved, but as one of His beloved. Set apart and precious, worthy and treasured. More than liked or tolerated, but worth dying for. A deeper love than I could ever imagine, just like the Bible says, “too great to understand fully”.

    His love has been made known to me in so many ways. In the lean times, when money was tight and He provided for us, in the times when blessing seemed to overflow beyond anything I could imagine, through the friend who just “had me on her heart” and thought to reach out, only to discover it’s what I desperately needed in that very moment. He has loved me through His Word, singing over me with love.

    You don’t have to wonder everyday, does he still love me? Because the answer is always “Yes!” Before you get out of bed, before you speak a word, He loves you. In every moment, in every circumstance he KEEPS ON LOVING YOU. That is your core identity. That is my identity. We can have total and complete confidence in that.

    Once you truly believe God’s love for you and embrace your identity as the wonderful, beautiful, chosen, daughter of the King whom Jesus died for because of His great love for you, it changes you at your very core. Every other decision, big or little, all our plans, and prayers and dreams all pass through that filter. It changes how we view the world and those around us, and it ripples out into every aspect of our lives.

    Today my dear friend, that is our prayer for you. That you may experience the love of Christ, even though it can feel like a bit of a mystery, so that you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Lean into His love, make your home there and let your identity as His beloved be the source of your joy!

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  • You Are Chosen

    There is something so special about being chosen. Think about when you were a kid. How amazing was it when you were chosen for the team or asked to sit with someone at the lunch table? Or when you are chosen for a job or for an award? Being chosen makes us feel valued. When someone chooses to be our friend or spouse, it makes us feel loved and brings worth to our identity. We all have a longing in our heart to be chosen, to feel like someone has chosen us and picked us. That someone sees our worth and they choose us.

    Not only did God choose to create us and to make us in His image, but He chose to be in relationship with us. He took great joy in living with His people in the garden of Eden. And when His people were separated by sin, He went to great lengths to make sure we could stay in relationship with Him, by sending His son, Jesus, to die on the cross and cleanse us of our sin.

    For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.”

    Romans 8:29-30

    Throughout history we can see God choosing us, His people, over and over again. He chooses us, even when we run away, even when we choose to worship something or someone else, even when we act defiantly and choose sin over God. He never stops pursuing us and continually chooses us to be His. When we make the decision to choose God by following His son Jesus, we are adopted as God’s children, and become heirs with Christ to the kingdom of God. How amazing is that?!

    Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.”

    Ephesians 1:4-5

    We have a Heavenly Father who loves us unconditionally and chooses us to be His sons and daughters. He longs for relationship with us, as a loving father is with his child. Our identity is rooted in being the beloved child of God, the creator of the universe, the King of Kings. We are chosen and loved by God–that is the most important thing that defines us.

    Part of our identity in Christ is being one chosen by God. Knowing that God chooses us frees us from having to strive to be chosen by others. Even when we are not picked for the team, for that job, in that friendship, we can still know our worth will always remain in who we are in Christ. We are always chosen by God. We are not chosen because we are worthy but rather we are worthy because we are chosen.

    Apostle Paul knew exactly who he was in Christ and we can see that he often defined himself as chosen by God. In almost every one of his letters to the churches, Paul identifies himself to the churches this way: “This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus”. Paul found his confidence and worth in his identity as being chosen by God.

    You are chosen too! You are chosen to be on God’s team. You are chosen to be His beloved daughter and to have a close relationship with Him. You are chosen to receive mercy and grace. You are chosen to be part of the kingdom of God.

    But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

    1 Peter 2:9-10

    We are chosen because we are loved, but we are also chosen to be a part of God’s work in this world. Being made in His image means we reflect Christ to the world around us. We are chosen for a purpose.

    “You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.” John 15:16

    “Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” Colossians 3:12

    Because we are chosen by God, He calls us to declare His praises and be a witness to His glory, to produce lasting fruit and to reflect His image by acting with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Because He called us out of the darkness and into His glorious light, we have the honor and privilege to be the holy, dearly loved, forgiven and called people of God.

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