We are continuing our 30-day challenge on loving yourself.  Alejandra is our guest blogger for the month of January and she is going to share with us the next level to loving ourselves

“The Company You Keep”

Psalm 1: “Blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.”

Man oh, man!  This has been quite the journey discovering the meaning of God’s love to me in the form of a biblical mirror.  The first week we spoke about the “mirror.” I shared with you that if the people in your life are toxic, then the words they speak soon become the mirror in which you begin to see yourself through. The second week we spoke on “loving me like He loved me.”  God found you valuable enough to die for! He doesn’t just like you, He loves you! Sacrifice the need to be liked, die to the need of belonging.  You need to understand that the anointing over your life is great so you will NEVER belong, EVER!  You aren’t the missing piece of the puzzle, with God you are whole, and you don’t belong with all those other broken pieces.  Because he loved me so much I needed to love me enough to die too, die to my sin.  It is important to have people in your life who are patient and whom you can share the vision and work that God is doing with you.  It can be hard to let go of toxic relationship but it is important to your own well being and the calling that God has for you to let go of them and press forward.  Lastly, if you are like me, you might have found the third challenge the most difficult.  We talked about being patient with ourselves even when we fail or don’t get it.  I also talked about being kind to ourselves as we are asked to be kind to others.

Let’s dive into this week’s topic, “The Company You Keep.”

As I write for the final week of this journey, I’m wondering where God is taking me. I realize how much I covered in such a short period of time.  The funny thing is there is so much more. For years I struggled with self-defeat and I discovered that many of the people I associated with felt the same way about me.  When you believe the worst in you, you attract the ones who believe what you believe. It wasn’t until about four years ago that I decided to do some purging. My friends changed.  Those who I allowed to mentor me changed.  I found that surrounding myself with people who loved me would be a lot healthier for my self-confidence.

Once I got married, I noticed that my husband was my number one fan.  Being around him and the positive energy he threw my way helped me to recognize what God had given me and it was the best thing I’ve ever experienced. I realized that, for a long time, God has been preparing me.  As I allowed Him to change my surroundings, my surroundings changed me!

We changed churches not too long after getting married.  Our new church was such a blessing to me. It was a place where I am surrounded by love — this was so important.  In addition, God put an “angel” in life named Milca Plaud, she was my Pastor.  I remember constantly asking her, “Why do you love me?” “What do you see in me?”  She believed in me, she trusted me with things within the church and gave me opportunities that I never dreamed of having. She only spoke to my attributes and, with love, rebuked me (LOL) when I needed it.  Her love for me was so transparent and amazing.  Though she passed to be with the Lord, she will remain forever one of those world-changers in my life.  Do you know why I express these thoughts to you guys?  Because, it is so important to surround yourself with those who love you and will lift you up.

Blessed is The One Who Does Not Walk in the Counsel of the Wicked

Who you allow to be in your inner circle matters.  For years I allowed myself to be around people who brought out the very worst in me.  I worked extremely hard to get my degree but those around me called me stupid right to my face!  The ones in my inner circle believed that I would never amount to anything.

TD Jakes says, “You’re only as good as the company you keep.”  I had the notion to remove those with toxic attitudes from my life but I wasn’t bold enough.  I kept saying to myself, “but they are family”, or “that’s not being humble.”  I even tried to legitimize it by thinking, “Jesus hung out with Judas and he was no good.”   My friend, if you don’t seek to remove those who can be toxic to you, then everything you’ve done in these past weeks would have been in vain.  I speak to you as a person who once lived in it.  That environment did nothing for me except produce a person who learned how to hate herself.  It doesn’t matter who they are, if they aren’t for you, they are against you — and no one should have a seat in your VIP area if they aren’t contributing and helping positively towards your cause. We need to ask God to remove those who stand in the way of the plans He has for us and believe that we are important to Him so that you don’t abort the destiny He has for you.

I chose to listen to that voice telling me that it was time to replace those in my inner circle. Once they were removed, I began to be that “blessed one” that Psalm 1 spoke about.  By getting rid of those people I was no longer walking in the counsel of those who persecuted me or spoke negative of me.  In fact, when I made those changes, great things happened that year.  I began to love who I was more and began to believe in myself more.  By the grace of God I was able to graduate college and from there, God began to rain down blessings that my hands were literally too small to receive.  Loving yourself requires you to also seek out those who love you as well.  You need those who are going to speak life into you.

Proverbs 18:21 says that “death and life are in the power of the tongue.”   So ask yourself this: Who are you giving this power to?  Working on you is probably the best gift you can give to the world around you.  It means that we need to learn how to love ourselves better, so that we can learn how to love others better.  The word of God says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Mark 12:30-31.  So that means if we continue to walk in a way that criticizes ourselves and think little of who we are, we will be of very little use to everyone else.  If you lack faith in who God created you to be, how can you encourage the faith of another?  Loving yourself as God sees you is key to fulfilling Christ’s second greatest commandment.

This Week’s Challenge:

The company you keep can determine your course of life. I challenge you to take this week and get to purging! Read Psalms 1. God speaks so clearly about what kind of blessed life we would have if we just changed the company we keep.  Ask God to remove those who seek to destroy you through words and for Him to give you the strength to remove yourself from the equation if it’s an unhealthy one.  Forgiveness is one thing, being someone’s stepping stool is a whole other story.

This week I would like you to hashtag, something plain and simple #HeLovesMeSoILoveMe. Remind yourself that God loves you and that He truly is enough.

Let’s pray,

“Father, as we draw near to the end of this “Love Yourself” journey continue to purge us from all things that forbid us from seeing your work in our lives.  Lord, we thank you that we are able to seek you through your Word. Continue to show us what’s in our hearts and remove what’s not from you. Thank you for your grace that is sufficient for us to see what we need to change. Thank you for giving us a model of how we should love ourselves, through the eyes of the cross and Jesus’ sacrifice.  Thank you that, through this journey, you will give us what we need to be patient and kind to others.  Guide us, Lord Jesus. Thank you that Your Word doesn’t come back void, but it transforms us. Thank you my God that through this journey we will become a better version of ourselves, one that we never thought we could be.  I pray that from this journey we will learn to live in the peace that comes from walking in your will. Let this devotion be a reminder of where you want us to go.  Guide our hearts and our minds back to you always.  In Jesus name we pray, Amen.”

-Alejandra

Thank you so much, Alejandra, for another awesome time reading your words.  I think it is not easy to talk about purging relationships.  The hard truth is that those who may have to be removed are those we want to hold on to.  I remember that painful season when God wanted to take me to another level, but I couldn’t bring my friends and their own baggage with me. 

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