Happy New Year!!!  You know what that means…It’s our Love Yourself Challenge (LYC).  Every January we have taken it to love ourselves.  It is not what others have made it.  It’s not about losing weight or pampering ourselves.  Those are only cover-ups to our deeper issues. In the month of July, we met a friend of mine, One Hot Mess (OHM for short). OHM shared how she had created a world of lies. Click to read, but in this amazing testimony, she showed how God’s saving grace kept her from prostitution and death. So for the month of January One Hot Mess has agreed to share more about herself to help us love ourselves better. Let’s start our January  journey.

About The “I Used To Worship” Series

The Bible makes it clear that idol worship is detestable to God. Most of us don’t think we have an issue with worshipping idols because our idols don’t look like the statues and poles and altars of the Old Testament. They don’t look like the pagan festivals of the New Testament. If we don’t worship present-day idols like money, politics, and fame, we assume that idolatry could never be an issue for us, especially those of us who faithfully follow Jesus.

In this series, I want to address the kind of idols that none of us can see but all of us can easily begin to put our trust in if we’re unaware. Some of us don’t even realize that we have disguised these idols as Christianity. I used to worship them myself, and now I can say that though I still struggle sometimes, I try to make the daily choice to worship only Jesus now that I’m aware. It’s these same idols that often prevent us from loving ourselves because they are rooted in rejection, abandonment, and shame. So, to kick off this New Year, we will be actively tearing down those idols. In doing so, we will deepen our relationships with God and truly learn to love ourselves.

I Used To Worship Perfection

Speaking of New Years, I have a love-hate relationship with New Year’s resolutions. I love the freshness that a New Year brings and the possibilities of a new season. I enjoy the challenge that comes with setting new goals for big dreams to happen. But I hate resolutions. I hate the fact that I would set resolutions — completely unrealistic ones — and I’d fail at them by February or March. Other times, if it seemed like my resolutions wouldn’t happen by June, I’d give up. So I stopped making resolutions altogether.

I stopped believing in resolutions because I hated failure. I would always take failure so personally because I was a chronic perfectionist. Instead of seeing failure as something I did wrong, I would attribute my failures to my character. So if I couldn’t be perfect or do perfect, I would settle for less, not try at all, or give up. I was paralyzed with fear that making mistakes would make me unlovable.

Perfection was my idol, not just at the beginning of the year, but every day. The fear of failure carried into my family life, my friendships, my career — even my relationship with God. My perfectionism looked like procrastination, trying to control outcomes and people, beating myself up over the smallest things for weeks, etc. My lack of perfection consumed my life. And when you’re worshiping an ideal of yourself that isn’t necessarily who God wants you to be, it’s hard to love yourself.

Defined By Our Failure

None of us likes to fail, but failure is inevitable. The problem is when we let our failures and successes define us, we put an enormous amount of pressure on ourselves. Under that kind of pressure we either steal God’s glory, thinking that every success is up to us (which is another blog for another day), or we break and give up when we fail. Maybe we think we should just be mediocre because we fear that if we “reach for the stars” we’ll fall. We may even accept mediocrity as a facade of perfection even though it’s not our best. Maybe we are in constant competition with ourselves and there’s never a winner. When we worship perfection, we never see ourselves as good enough, there is always something to improve, and we are critical towards others. Ultimately, we do fail because whether we attempt to achieve it or not, our standard is impossible.

The crazy thing is, the answer to our perfectionist problems is not to stop trying to be perfect. Jesus actually said,

“Be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48).

That doesn’t necessarily mean doing perfect things, instead it means being “whole, complete, full of integrity.” Another way to put that is to be holy or to be one with God. The only way we can do that is through Jesus.

When we accept his death on the cross for our sins and His resurrection that gives us new life, we become instantly perfect in God’s sight. The Bible says

“[God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Jesus took our place (sin) so that we could take His place (perfect). The more we grow in relationship with Him, the more we become one with Him. That is called sanctification or becoming holy.

How to Be Perfect

So, to tear down the idol of perfection, you have to accept Jesus’ perfection. Yes, you will still struggle with your sinful nature until Jesus returns but, in Christ, you are not defined by our sin any longer. The Bible says, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Through Christ, God sees you as perfect. The hard part is believing that. Choose every day to remind yourself of your righteousness in Christ and the sanctification that is taking place. Choose every day to separate your failure from who you are. In order to define yourself by who God says you are, you have to replace your definition of who you or the world thinks you are.

So stop striving. The truth is, nothing you do can make God love you less. God knew the ugliest parts of who you are and still sent His only Son to die on the cross for you. Jesus made you perfect when He said, “It is finished.” Your day-to-day failure cannot undo that — and His righteousness and your perfection to God matters more than what you or the world thinks about you.

Allow God’s love to be enough for you and stop living for an image or idol of yourself that He never intended you to live. Find your freedom in Him. As for your flesh — the part that you struggle with every day because it hasn’t caught up to your soul’s perfection — God is working on that too and He promises to complete the good work that He started. When you believe that, His Spirit helps you to live it. Hallelujah!

Defined by Jesus

What if we realized that we are defined by Jesus — not what we do? Yes, the Bible says that people are known by their fruit (what they show through their life), but remember that we want the Fruit of the Spirit, not the Fruit of the Striving. That means the Holy Spirit is the One who has to grow that fruit in us — God is working in us! What if we rested in Jesus’ work? What if we dwelled on that instead of the ways we fall short in our flesh? What if we went to our Father — our Daddy God — every day and let Him remind us of who we are?

I think all of that time spent with Him, abiding in God, would turn into that “fruit” that we desperately want to see John 15:1-5. I think we would find that when we fail it’s not the end of the world because that doesn’t make us failures, that makes us human and gives God an opportunity to show His power. We would see how God is making us more like Him. We would love who we are just as much as the person we are becoming. We would find that our actions match our desire for God more and more everyday. We would have joy and peace. We would be less anxious and depressed because we would realize that we are already perfect.

Love Yourself Challenge

Day 1  — Listen to the song “Who You Say I Am” by Hillsong Worship. If you can, sing it over yourself. Listen to and sing the words like you believe them about yourself, declaring freedom in Christ and your identity in Him. 

Day 2 — Journal the answer to the question, “what if I fail?” Then write God’s truth in response to what you wrote. 

Day 3 — Read and meditate on Romans chapter 8 today.

Day 4 — At the end of the day, talk to God about the ways you messed up. Then forgive yourself because He has forgiven you. 

Day 5 —Meditate on Philippians 1:6 — “I am sure of this very thing — that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the Day of Christ Jesus.”

Day 6 — Pray this prayer today: Have your way in me, Holy Spirit. 

Follow us on Facebook and Instagram @throughthewinters.com.