Week 3: Dealing with Insignifiance

“But you are chosen people, a royal priesthood,  a holy nation, a people belonging to God, 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)

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15)

God makes extraordinary declarations about our identity and position now that Christ has done his extraordinary work of atoning for our sin and destroying the devils works. Just look at the two verses above. We’re chosen, we’re priests in God’s temple, we belong to him now, we live in God’s marvellous light and patient mercy and we’re even friends of God. Wow! But we obviously find this so hard to believe. If we did our lives would look radically different to the way they do. If we really believed our identity is now found in God why are we so anxious all of the time? Why are we so pushy to get our own way? Why is my noise so easily put out-of-joint when someone is rude to me or pushes in front of me? My self-worth seems to be determined much more by what others think than what God thinks.

The reason for this is many and varied but I want to focus on one –‘insignificance’. For many of us this is a deep, hidden stronghold in our lives. Something, somewhere in our past said to us that we were worthless in some way. Somebody who was essential in providing our sense of personal worth and wellbeing failed to give what our developing hearts needed. For many of us it would have been a parent who was just too busy. They thought they were loving us by working really hard so that they could pay for us to go to college but what our souls really wanted was their presence, they love and physical contact. For many children this absence leads to a sense that they have failed in some way, it is their fault that their parent never spends time with them, there must be something wrong with me. But if I work harder, am more successful, more beautiful, they might notice and pay attention to me. So, beings an inner self doubt, or insignificance and the myriad of outer performances we stage to help us not feel so bad about ourselves.

 So, as with last week, ask these two questions:

1)   Where does the outward manifestation of insignificance appear in my life? Do I struggle with feelings of self-worth? Do I catch myself saying to myself when I do something wrong things like ‘You idiot!’, ‘You looser!’, ‘You always...’ Do I constantly bring up a past incident as an excuse to explain why things now are so hard? A close friend or partner will tell us easily if we do this. Do I often miss meetings or appointments because I think ‘no one will notice if I’m not there’?

2)   What is the ‘root’ of my insignificance? Ask the Holy Spirit to show you if there is some specific incident or event in your past which was the reason for it to take hold. Was there one significant adult who either spoke negatively into my life or totally failed to affirm my significance though love and affection?

Once again let’s use our FIVE R’s Prayer:

a)   Recognise Ask the Spirit to show you if there was some sin in the above event. How were you sinned against? What was your sinful response? Believing a lie about yourself? I think I’m useless but Jesus says I’m his treasured passion – who’s right? And more importantly who will I believe?

b)  Repent Confess this sin out load. Forgive anybody you need to forgive, release them and pray God’s blessing upon them.

c)   Receive Thank God for his forgiveness. Claim that forgiveness in Jesus Name. Knowing that as we confess our sins God is faithful to forgive us all our sins (1 John 1:8-9)

d)  Renounce Pray: “In the Name of Jesus Christ my Saviour and Friend I now come against the stronghold of Insignificance in my life. I break your power in Jesus Name and tell you to get out of my life forever. I pray this in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

e)   Renew Begin by thanking God that you are chosen, beloved, friend of his. Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you again. This verse from Galatians has been particular helpful to me in placing my identity in Christ and not in the sin and folly of my past. If you can memorize this verse and repeat it when you find yourself playing ‘old tapes’ of insignificance: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me! The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)