Stay Safe

I've noticed that people don’t take time to invest in themselves.  We are just too busy.  We rush around doing this and that, and this often leads us to finding our identity in what we do or what job we have, who we are married to or other things, but we have to find our fulfillment in the Lord.

We have to root our character in the Lord, find our purpose and place in him alone.  We cannot approach our relationship with God from a performance based mentality. 

We can see from the Hall of Faith (Hebrews 11) that God did not call the polished or professionals to be his representatives, and those that were naturally qualified (like the Apostle Paul) soon realized that all the qualifications were rubbish!

The only place to seek acceptance and find fulfilment, is in the Lord.   
We often look outside of our relationship with God for our validation and worth.

God wants us to look only to him for our identity and value. 
Jesus was willing to go to the cross and die for you; that should be enough proof of how much you are worth!

(Proverbs 29:25)  
The fear of man brings a snare: 
but whoso puts his trust in the LORD shall be safe.
The fear of man is always worrying about what we must do to gain acceptance – it is the search for someone to appreciate you, to validate you, to care for you.

SNARE – literally a ring in the nose (which means that you can be lead anywhere!)

The reason the fear of man is a snare, is because when you worry about what other people think of you,  you have to behave in a way that you believe will be pleasing to other people; it is tiring to always be concerned about how they feel about you.

SAFE = Inaccessible

When we are pleasing people there are so many things that can come into our hearts: fear, guilt, anxiety, rejection and offence to name a few. 
Then add to that, pressure to maintain a persona, the stress of being someone you’re not, you are asking for stress and strife.
Grounding ourselves in God will keep us safe from these things.

When we invest into our relationship with God, and look to Jesus for our identity we will find peace. In Hebrew and Greek, the word for 'peace' means literally nothing missing or lacking, nothing broken.   
We will be complete in every level.

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