beheld...day 42

"beheld" by Leanne

Today our youth ministry began a series, setting a foundation on which to address some of the challenges that most students in our youth ministry will face at some point in their junior high and high school experiences. 

The challenge is that we are living in a broken world…in a culture that feeds a steady stream of lies to young people about what is important and what makes them valuable.

The series launched in our youth ministry today is designed to equip and strengthen the students to learn what God says about them, developing a framework that will allow them to address the brokenness and shame that they struggle with in light of their value as precious children of the Most High…beloved and beheld sons and daughter of their Maker.

My eldest daughter worked at a bank for a couple of years.  One of the things she was expected to do was to identify if anyone was trying to deposit counterfeit money.  I would have thought that to be trained to do this she would study all the tricks that criminals use to create counterfeit money.  But that is not how she learned to spot counterfeit bills.  Instead she studied the real thing…she studied it so carefully and she got to know what it looked like so thoroughly that when the counterfeit came along she could see it for what it was.

The same principle can be applied to recognizing the lies we are fed by the culture around us. That is why today was so important for the students;  we didn’t spend the time focusing on the lies that our culture is feeding students about their value and identity; instead we spent the entire time studying the “real thing”; what God’s word says about students as dearly loved people created in their Maker’s image.  We read verse after verse after verse about what it means to be made in God’s image and what God thinks of us….and Oh how He loves us!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hopefully all these verses will move from being words on a page to truths in our hearts so that we can begin to look at shame and brokenness in our lives from a position of hope, developing the ability to uncover and expose the lies that we have been agreeing with  by holding them up against the truth of God’s Word…His personal, infallible story of redemption, restoration, and reconciliation of His creation to Himself.

In the session today we ended with this raw and real prayer:

Dear Lord,

You are the all powerful, all-knowing Maker of heaven and earth.  You alone know how we are made and who we’re meant to be.  You have not shortchanged me.  You know the way I am formed.  You know what motivates me.  You know what shuts me down.  You have not given me a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind.  I claim each of those priceless traits as mine this day.  Help me to come before You with complete transparency, and give me a supernatural confidence that I am safe with you and loved by You.  Your desire is my freedom, not my self-condemnation, so with confidence, I welcome the one and reject the other.  Forgive me for my unbelief.

You knew what You were doing when You formed me in my mother’s womb.  Nothing is without purpose.  You mean to increase the praise that comes to you because of my life.

Perform a miracle on me, Lord. Cover me with Your trustworthy hand.  Clothe me with strength and dignity.  Make me a courageous man/woman in this confusing culture.

You, Lord are my security.  No one and nothing can take You from me.

I choose to turn my back on fear and the lies of the enemy, because you are right here with me and have put value on my life as Your son/daughter.

I have divine strength to overcome every obstacle because I belong to You.  You treasure me and Your Spirit lives within me.

I am free in Jesus’ triumphant name.

Amen

“But now, this is what the LORD says—
   he who created you, Jacob,
   he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
   I have summoned you by name; you are mine.”

Isaiah 43:1

Bottom line:

We are made in God’s image

and we a deeply loved by our Maker.