Your Identity in God

In this blog, I want to expand on how you can develop any characteristic in your life through positive thinking. Since this blog is a focus on developing joy, and since joy comes from within, we need to know who we are now and who we want to become moment by moment in order to produce who we want to be (a joyful person). This blog entry details this concept.

Self Concept
Your self-concept, which is what you think about yourself, is reflected in our actions. To change your actions, and thus increase joy, you must become aware of and change your self-concept.
As water reflects a man's face, so a man's heart reflects the man. (Prov 27:19)

Thus by their fruit you will recognize them. (Matt 7:20)

Your self-concept either expands or restricts your potential for joy. As detailed in a previous blog, what you think and dwell upon is what tends to become reality. Thus, with each thought, your self-concept moves either toward or away from your highest potential. To move toward your highest potential, you must realize who you truly are and who you are to become!
In regards to who you truly are, you must realize whose you are.


For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph 2:10)

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called Children of God. (1 John 3:12)

We are spiritual beings, living a temporary human experience. We are designed to fulfill a role by God, for God, that is individually made for each and every person. Thus, dwelling on our human nature results only in discouragement and underachievement since we are not infallible and are sinful. These are the effects of the world which stain our self-concept and results in feelings of unworthiness. Instead we should live with the perspective of our Creator by seeing ourselves in our true identity, as a beloved child of God. Your true identity and value comes from God, not from the dominant exposures in the world.
To refine your self-concept, you must be aware of three essential elements that make it up.


Self Image
This is the current picture of how you see yourself today. It is formed primarily from your environmental influences (what others say about you, what you perceive others to think about you, and what you think about yourself), and it is the subconscious mechanism responsible for guiding your behavior. It is critical to understand your self-image because this is the mental construct of the self with which we most often act consistently. Your self-image determines how you use your time, talents, knowledge, skills and experiences. If you are unwilling to change your self image, then you will most likely continue to repeat the same things you've always done. You will hardly ever feel like acting in a manner that is inconsistent with your self-image. But you can override your past negative programming by choosing new behaviors that are in line with your God-given potential. How do you do this? By changing your thinking. Instead of attributing success to lady luck (the great "impostor") and attributing your failures to the true you, switch it around. Consider your successes as representing the true you, the you at its fullest potential, who you are truly meant to be, and your failures as the Impostor. In other words, don't over-identify with the negatives in life. Dismiss them for what they are and remind yourself of your true potential. Remember, you experience that which you give the most attention to!


Self Ideal
This is your future picture of yourself, the best you could imagine yourself to be. It is what your life would look like if everything were perfect. By holding this view of the self in the forefront of your mind, it prompts you unconsciously to make decisions that navigate your way to your future destination. This takes you from living life in your current self-image state to living life in an ideal state. To do this, you must have some idea of what your self-ideal truly is. You can gain insight to your self-ideal by developing a detailed personal mission statement. This is a conscious, written articulation of your full potential from God's point of view. Your personal mission statement, as well as developing lifetime goals become a physical tool you can use to fine-tune your self ideal.


Self Worth
Your self-worth is the private reputation you hold of yourself. Most people's self worth comes from the world, from messages they have received from family, TV, loved ones, and even enemies. However, true self-worth is authentic self-esteem rooted in your uniqueness as a child of God.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Ps 139:16)

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (Ps. 139:14)

What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. (Ps 8:4-5)

As the above verses demonstrate, you are important to God. He has created you as an individually special and unrepeatable miracle. He has great plans for your life, and you should trust His word more than the words of others as appraisal of your value as a person. Self-worth is thus not based on achievements, but on the significance you place on your life outside of your performance. In other words, it is based on your identity as one created and loved by God.

Thus, to change your self-concept, you have to identify your self-image, define your self-ideal, and identify your self-worth with God's view. You must learn to reject negative messages, bring your self-ideal to the forefront of your thought life so you can subsequently act according to it to change your life down its path, and place your value as a person not in the world's hands, but in God's hands.



What can I do?

1. Be willing to change your self-concept day by day, every day. Make it a focus.
2. Re-define your self concept. Realize that you are a child of God, living a temporary human existence.
3. Do not dwell on your human experience. Live with spiritual eyes and see yourself as a true Child of God.
4. Change your self-image by identifying with your successes and dismissing your failures. Don't accept the world's inputs for who you are. Identify yourself with God.
5. Define your self-ideal. Develop a personal mission statement and personal goals as revealed to you by God. Keep that ideal in the forefront of your mind and focus on living your self-ideal every moment.
6. Develop good self-worth. Don't accept the world's input as to your self-worth. Reject its negative messages and instead accept your identity as a unique and cared for child of God.

My Application

To me, this blog can be summarized by the words of Jesus in John 15:19:

If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.

To experience joy, I must no longer accept the inputs of the world for my self-worth and my self-image. I must realize that I am a child of God, uniquely and wonderfully made, for His purposes in this world. My identity does not come from the TV, or my patients, my kids, my wife, my family, or my accomplishments. They are a part of me, but they are not my identity. I must recognize my identity as God's child. I need to identify who God wants me to be, my self-ideal, and live with that perspective every day, every moment, and make it my primary focus. This involves being conscious of my thoughts and actions at all times from God's perspective, which is, in essence, living as a Christian should. I need to develop my mission statement from a heavenly viewpoint, as well as subsequent goals. I need to prayerfully seek God's guidance and vision in this area of my life, as God has directed me to this point in life, but not further. Finally, I need to constantly learn to reject the world's message to me of who I am and what makes me important by limiting my inputs and remain focused on God's view of me and His ultimate purposes for me in this world. My value and worth do not come from the world, but rather from my Creator, and I am dearly loved and created for love and joy.

Focussing on What Produces Joy

To produce joy, we must learn to change our thought pattern. It is a matter of changing your focus. If you persist in identifying with your past self or performance by constantly thinking about it, then where you have been, what you are now, and where you are going will all be one in the same and you will never grow into something more. The Apostle Paul gives us the solution to this problem via Philippians 4:8. It essentially tells us that we need to search out and dwell on the positives in life. We need to be looking for God's character revealed within us and for His blessings in our lives. Phil 4:8 gives us a "to think" list; a thought list that when employed will produce positive results. Productive thinking, as suggested by Paul, and destructive, negative thinking, are both merely habits. We must choose, moment by moment, which habit we want to develop.
Whatever improvement in life that you are seeking must start with your thought life. Whatever you give your attention to expands in your experience. Thus, if you dwell on your strengths, your blessings, and your goals, then you will experience more strengths, blessings, and success in your goals. You can build any virtue into your mentality by dwelling on that virtue, meditating on it, every day. Dwelling on you problems doesn't fix them; it just makes you an expert on them. The more you dwell on them, the tighter the grip they exert on you, thus influencing the decisions you make and the actions you take. The good news is that this principle is also effective for positive things in life. Thus, instead of letting your negatives control you, you can choose to be influenced by joy and be more joyful by dwelling on your positives. Remember, whatever you give your attention to expands in your experience!
A great application of the 4:8 Principle is by confronting a negative in life by bathing it in a positive. If it is a problem, don't focus on the problem, but rather the solutions. If it is a negative attitude, move attention away from it and toward a positive one by thinking about the positives in life.
The simplest way to redirect your thoughts from negative ones to positive ones and thus continue to develop productive, joy-producing thinking is to ask 4:8 questions. These are questions about your life that automatically extract a positive answer. The following are examples.
1. What are 5 things I am thankful for right now?
2. What are 5 of my strengths?
3. What are my 5 best acheivements?
4. Who are 5 people that love me?

These questions cause you to dwell on the positive, not the negative. By keeping questions like these in the forefront of your mind and asking them frequently, you can take captive every thought and give attention to the positive in your life and not the negative, leading to joy instead of dispair.

What can I do?

1. Bring your thought life into consciousness. Each and every moment is an opportunity to change your now and your future.
2. Don't give attention to your negatives. Instead, focus on the positives in life and the solutions to your problems.
3. Develop the habit of having positive, productive thinking instead of negative, destructive thinking.
4. Ask and answer 4:8 questions each and every day and keep them at the forefront of your thinking. Be prepared with them at every moment of the day.

My Application

I tend to be one who constantly dwells on the negatives. Even if it is the best situation imaginable, I always tend to find the one or two even littlest things to dwell on that are keeping the situation from being perfect. It is part of my sinful nature, part the way I was raised, and part a lie from Satan. God does not desire this of me. It is not a part of how He made me. I do not deserve perfection in my situations. I cannot earn perfection. I cannot and am not judge of every situation. God does not expect perfection from me in and of myself. I thus experience disappointment and dwell on that day in and day out. So what is my solution? What is my application? My solution is to remember constantly to TRUST GOD. I have to keep at the forefront of my mind that God does not require me to be perfect. God has not given me authority to judge every situation. God has put me in every situation, whether good or bad, for my own good, and He desires me to be there because He loves me. I have to take every thought captive and subject it to the test of whether it is true, noble, just, pure, lovely, or of good report. If not, I eject the thought and think attempt to realize God's blessing in my life by asking my own 4:8 questions.

1. Does God love me?

2. Am I forgiven?

3. Did God put me in this situation?

4. Does God care for me even in this situation?

5. How has God blessed me in this situation?

6. What can I learn from this situation?

Life As it Was Meant to Be

Living a joy-filled life is our birthright. Since we were created in God's image, and God is joy, it is entwined with our very being that we be joyful. To be other than joyful is to be contrary to our nature. It is within us, but it must be released. And it is God's will for us to be joyful.

So God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. (Gen 1:27)

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thes 5:16-18)

Joy is an outward expression of the inward faith in God's promises. It is not a destination, but rather a path you choose to travel each and every day. To live a joy-filled life, we must learn to trust in God no matter what, to trust that He has our best interest at heart, and He has great plans for my life. To live joyfully thus requires that we focus on God and His goodness to the exclusion of all else.
With every thought, you create a circumstance. Every thought (almost) leads to an action, whether mental, physical, or emotional. Thoughts eventually crystallize into words and actions. Thus, whatever you direct your mind to think about will eventually be revealed for all to see. Our thought life is very random due to the busyness of life. We do not deliberately think throughout the day. Thus, to experience more joy, we need to move from random thinking to deliberate thinking, which is the practice of mental discipline. If you want to experience God's ideal for your life, which is joy, and get the most out of every moment, you must retrain your thoughts and transform your mind.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing, and perfect will. (Rom 12:2)

To feel joy, you must think joyful thoughts. You can't think one thing and experince something otherwise. No one thinks angry thoughts and then feels joyful. Moods and emotions coincide with our thought life. Thinking, talking, and worrying about what you don't want can never bring you what you do want. There is thus no need to worry about the past or the future. All you have is right now. All you can change is the now. Thus, we should focus not on the past, nor the future, but rather the present, since those are the only thoughts (and thus emotions) that you can currently change.

For as he thinks within himself, so he is (Prov 23:7)

But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart (Matt 15:18)


What can you do?

1. Focus on the positives, not the negatives.
2. Focus on progress, not perfection.
3. Make your thoughts focus on God and His good will for you no matter your circumstances or situation.
4. Do not dwell on the past or the present, but rather focus on the present.
5. Become mentally aware of your thought life; in other words, become mentally disciplined.
6. Renew your mind day by day, that you may be transformed (Rom 12:2)
7. To be joyful, think thoughts of joy.

My Application

So how does this apply to me? Well, I am a worrier; I constantly worry about the future, about provision, safety, my kids, my wife, my time, and my life, let alone my work and my patients. So how do I institute change? First, I must decide that I want to change, that I don't want to be a worrier, that I want a joy-filled life. Second, I have to remember constantly to trust in God, no matter the circumstance or situation, that God has a good heart and His intentions for me are good. Third, I cannot focus on the past or the future, but rather focus on the present, and choose to take captive every thought and put it to the test against the word and desires of God, that in me His joy may be complete.

Introduction

Our goal is to think in a way that maximizes our potential for joy. Your thought life is the one area of life that you can control, and since your thoughts are what creates feelings, you can control what you feel by controlling what you think about.
Because God wants us to experience His joy, and He is joy all the time, we need to learn to think like God thinks. We need to learn to focus on things that reflect and honor His character. This is exemplified by the verse Philippians 4:8, which says:

"Finally, brethren,

whatever things are true,

whatever is noble,

whatever is just,

whatever is pure,

whatever is lovely,

whatever is of good report,

if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy -

meditate on these things."

The Purpose and Goal

A few months ago I started to realize my lack of joy in life. It wasn't situational, as all was going well. It wasn't that I didn't have what I wanted or needed; I have a great job, a wonderful and loving family, and am not in need. I was just unhappy in my current situation. I thus picked up a book, The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life by Tom Newberry. It is a journey to obtaining true joy in life. This book helped me tremendously to find joy where I was at in life, whether all was good or bad. It contained many helps and thoughtful insights and study guides that I found extraordinarily useful. This is my journey through this book. I hope these insights are just as helpful to you as well. I encourage you to read this book and progress through it thoughtfully as I have, that you too may find true joy in any life circumstance.

My purpose of this blog is to detail my journey through this book and provide a source for me to refer to as my joy becomes suppressed. My goal is to remember this blog and refer to it to continue to find joy daily in life.