Fresh Start: How I see me vs. How HE sees me
What I Sees VS. What He Sees
“How to live the life of the Kingdom of Heaven into every corner of the human existence.” Dallas Willard
Our vision at Antioch Austin is only as big as what we collectively commit to. Our hope is that the Gospel grows in you, so that it can grow through you, and impact our city and our world. The great commission of Jesus is to “go and make disciples”, which means we first have to become disciples ourselves.
Jesus called us to be a disciple, a student, an apprentice of who he was. Romans 12:1-2, tells us:
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
To echo what we learned last week: to follow Jesus means that we have been transformed by him, because we have been with him. It means that we live from a different operating system than those who don’t believe.
As we learn to walk with Jesus, the human spirit is conditioned to reflect on the question “how am I doing?”. What do we see when we look in the mirror? What is the story that we are telling ourselves about ourselves? It is a story full of all we should have done, could have done, or shouldn’t have done? Or is it a story that is filled with who God says we are, what he has for us to do?
There is a young man in the book of Judges that we can relate too, his name is Gideon. Gideon didn’t see in the mirror, what God saw when he looked at him. During this time, everything that could go wrong was. The people of God were rebelling against God and then came the consequence of that sin. They were desperate, and finally called out to God who hears their cries and is coming to rescue them.
Judges 6:11-16 says:
“The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Off-rah that belonged to Jo-ashthe A-bi-zer-ite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, ‘The Lord is with you, mighty warrior’. ‘Pardon me, my lord,’ Gideon replied, ‘but if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”
Gideon is frustrated and we learn from Psalms that lamenting is a healthy emotional honesty with God’s character in clarity. However, a continued rant without clarity of who God is, is just that a rant. But, despite Gideon’s lack of faith and trust we see God use him still. In verse 14 it says:
“The Lord turned to him and said, ‘Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?’ ‘Pardon me, my lord,’ Gideon replied, ‘but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.’ The Lord answered, ‘I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.”
Gideon didn’t see himself for who God saw him to be. He couldn’t receive what God was saying to him, and can’t we relate to Gideon. He keeps asking God to perform these signs for him to make sure that God was really with himself. And God is so gracious to him, proving himself to Gideon over and over. I see this as Gideon learning his new reflection. I see someone who saw his reflection of weakness, brokenness, cowardness, and inadequacy as who he really was.
Gideon needed reassurance, to learn to see himself as God saw him. And as he replaced his relfection with a God centered identity, he took his first step of obedience. He tore down the alter of Baal, both confidently and tentatively.
Then the spirit of God comes on Gideon and he blows the trumpet and calls the people to follow him, they rally, and then Gideon says in Verse 36:
Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised— 37 look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water. Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.
I love this, because I think it gives us a key on how to deal with feelings of inadequacy. Gideon says “God, I need to be reminded again. I can’t shack this story I have told myself for my whole life, and if I am honest I just don’t think I have what it takes.”
Maybe we should take a lesson from Gideon, in the moments when we are wondering if who God said that we are is really true, that we say:
“GOD SHOW ME AGAIN that you are with me, show me again who you are to me, God show me again how you see me, and help me to see myself that way”.
Because the only way to change what we see when we look at ourselves, is to start seeing what God sees when he looks at us.