Fighting the Lies Our Culture Tells Us about Our Identity | Word First

- [Melissa Kruger] When I was a kid growing up, one of my favorite things to do was to go each year to the state fair. And inevitably I would find myself in the funhouse, and we would laugh to see ourselves in the different mirrors. I don't know if you all ever did this, and sometimes your head would be huge or sometimes you'd be really tall and skinny or sometimes you'd find, you know, everything beyond here would be wide, and we would just laugh looking at ourselves in these misshapen ways, but I don't know if you've noticed this. I feel like sometimes I have that view of myself in a spiritual or emotional or even physical sense when I think about my identity. And I can get a really warped view of who I am because of things I'm hearing from culture. So, how do you all think when you look at culture, that it's giving us this warped view of who we are? - [Betsy Howard] Yeah, definitely. I see two primary ways that we can get our identity warped by messages that we're receiving. The first is that you are who are other people think you are. You know, their impression of you is what defines you. Whether you please them, whether you live up to their expectations, that's who you really are. The other is who you feel deep down is who you are. Your desires, your longings, that is you at your core, and if you feel really great about yourself, you are really great. If you feel really terrible about yourself, you're really not worth much. Both of those are very easy to take on and to live to have as a driving force of our lives. - [Trillia Newbell] Yeah, I think to get really specific in culture, some of the ways that I have had to struggle or…even the simple things like a magazine cover, it can distort your view. You're like, "So that's what I'm supposed to look like?" or it could be the expectations that you see even in your church, "Okay, so this is what the ideal family is supposed to look like." So you have to wrestle, "Is this the view that we see in Scriptures? Is this what God has called to or is this something that is a culture?" And so I'm mistaking my identity and I'm placing it in that culture, and I have a distorted view then of myself and how God views me. So, in culture, I think we can be influenced in so many different ways and ways that we don't even know that we are even from watching television and what we're feeding our souls. So there's a lot of ways that I think culture can affect our view, and distort, and twist how we view ourselves and what God says. - [Melissa Kruger] Yeah, and when you are talking, it happens in culture so much on these things like beauty or how do I identify based on what I feel, but I'm even seeing it in the church. I can find myself…one of the things I've seen in my own heart is I can get really consumed with my failure, and I can be really comfortable with the "sinner" label. I'm a sinner, but one thing I loved is going to Scripture and seeing how Paul always addresses...the sinners he's writing to, he calls them "saints." And when I say to myself, "I'm a saint who struggles with sin," versus "I'm a sinner who's trying to be a saint," it's such a different way to live. So, when you are combatting these wrong images, what truths do you remind yourself of from Scripture? So, for me, it's that I'm a saint, I'm a saint, I'm a saint. I've got to say it to myself again. What do you all do? What things help you remember? Who am I? - [Trillia Newbell] I'm in Christ. I'm in Christ. I'm in Christ. I think of Ephesians. The whole book but just the first few chapters. I am a new creation. I am, in Christ Jesus, born again, chosen for the foundation of the world, which is absolutely ridiculous. And then, who am I that he would think I'm his soulmate? He's created the heavens but he's thinking of us. And so I think reminding myself of who I am in Christ Jesus, that I've been chosen, adopted, that I'm an heir of Christ, that I am covered by his blood, which really is the gospel. But, all of that I think preaching those truths to myself helps remind me that I am a saint, and I have to fight sin. Another thing is reminding myself that I struggle with idolatry and so I want to identify where that struggle is and then fight it. And that helps me to remember that there is a fight there as we know, and so I have to identify where it is that I'm placing my hope and trust and faith, because that's what we're doing when we're identifying with anything other than God, other than Christ, and then help ask God for help to fight it. - [Betsy Howard] And what you said speaks really well to that. Your identity is who God says you are, not who you feel deep down, what you feel deep down and who you've always been afraid that you might be. As far as speaking to what other people think of you, it really helps me to remember I am living my life to please God, not to please the people closest to me, not to please my boss, not to please my parents. Yes, I want them to be happy with me but ultimately I have to keep coming back to, "What is God asking of me?" And sometimes what God asks from me is going to displease the people that I love most, or it might just be that there's nothing I can do to please them. But God knows my heart. God knows my desires and his opinion of me-- which is based on the righteousness of Christ and the Holy Spirit's work in me--that is what is most important. - [Melissa Kruger] That's great. It's just reminding ourselves of these truths over and over again, isn't it? Because it's just so easy. Like you said, you open the magazine and, one more time, the lies kind of capture what we're thinking. - [Betsy Howard] It's not always easy for me to move from one to the other. When you realize you're living out a false identity, when you're feeling incredibly insecure about how you look, or about what someone thinks of you or anything, what do you do? What does it look like for you to take off that false identity and put on your true identity in Christ? - [Together] Yeah. - [Trillia Newbell] Well, for me, I think saying things out loud. So God says, if we confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us and to purify us; 1 John 1:9. And so, for me, if I recognize…because that's the key. It's hard to recognize sometimes. And, if I recognize that, "I am actually placing my identify, my hope, my trust, my faith in this thing" and I can confess it to a friend, to my husband, to the Lord, even maybe sometimes to my kids: "this is why mommy is doing this." Then it helps me to say it out loud and then to preach truth back to myself, not to just sit there but to remind myself that I am covered by the blood of the lamb and that I am new creation as I mentioned just a second ago. And if we confess our sin, he really is faithful. That Scripture isn't just…he really is faithful to forgive and to purify and to change. And I think we just…it's a fight. We have to fight. We're waiting to be with him forever, so we have to fight for that truth. - [Melissa Kruger] Yes, and those are just so important. Just the confession and repentance. Sometimes I think we forget that in our Christian walk. The other thing I like to always say, you know, I like to look at the physical world. So, if we want to have a healthy body, we know we should eat right and exercise. But sometimes, you know, you go for a run one time and you're like, "Why hasn't it all changed? Why don't I always feel better?" And I think our spiritual lives are similar. We know that, to grow a healthy, spiritual life, and a healthy view of ourselves, we need time in the Word and time in prayer, but it doesn't just happen that we read it once and that we get that. It's a lifetime… - [Trillia Newbell] It's an educational process. - [Melissa Kruger] Yeah, it's a lifetime of digging into those truths, and then it's going to expose what we didn't even see. You know, like, you were talking about, we have to recognize it. And sometimes, if we're not in the Word, that's the perfect mirror. That's not the funhouse mirror. That's the right, accurate assessment of who I am, and so by daily being in that, the Lord is faithful to show us, "Okay, this is the false identity you're living in. Remember who you are." - [Trillia Newbell] Also remember who God is. - [Melissa Kruger] Yes, yes, even more importantly. - [Trillia Newbell] Well, right, more importantly. I think just looking at who God is. Jesus, the wonderful Savior. God, holy, and just, and awesome, and righteous. It reminds us, one, who we are not, and it helps to reorient my focus, my mind, setting my mind on Christ and on God rather than on myself constantly. - [Betsy Howard] And that process of reorienting, of confession and repentance, that is not something that happens once, like you were saying, and you're finished. It may have to happen a hundred times in one day, but that's okay. That's continually making process. So, I think do it as many times a day as we need to and, by God's grace, we will live as the women that he says that we are. - [Together] Amen.