When I was younger, I had no idea that the term “gifts” was a thing for something that we had been given. Something that could be developed and would turn into something beautiful. Something, if we were brave and courageous enough to say yes to, receive and cultivate, would bring God glory and advance his kingdom. I had no idea that the things we desired, visited and thought about often were actually the things that were probably going to be a part of our life in the future.
I have heard the inner cries of women around me. There is this inner cry of women wanting to step into more, but fear, the voices and opinions of others, and societal expectations cripple us more than anything.
I have felt the struggles and seen the setbacks. I have seen the effect of the lies we have been fed. Those lies disrupt our belief system and kill our confidence. We are hearing that we should step into who we are, but there are so many blocks and its so hard.
The biggest cry is we don’t even know what we carry. We don’t know what’s truly inside of us.
We may have had a glimpse, or maybe its right there in front of our faces, but we constantly play it down, even talking negative over it. We get stuck in this trap of, we are a nobody and that what we bring to the table is no good. There may have been a time when we were younger and someone came to you, telling you their opinion of you or your gifts and talents, crushing the little bit of confidence you were holding on to. So you walked away feeling defeated and actually believed them.
Listen, the enemy wants you to be destroyed. He knows that what God created was beyond great and it terrifies him to the core. What God created was YOU and he called you GOOD. So because the enemy knows what is good, he doesn’t want you to step into any of it. He doesn’t want us to know what we carry, so he sends out confusion, distraction, people to get us to stop in our tracks, obstacles to get off track, anything in his little bit of power he thinks he has to accomplish his will. He comes to steal, kill and destroy.
And in this area of his schemes, he wants to destroy your gifts so that you will never rise to true knowledge of what is inside of you. He wants to deceive you like no other.
If he can deceive you, he can trick you into thinking you have nothing to offer, your past will be displayed to you over and over, your mistakes, your brokenness will make you feel like you will never be able to rise up, you will begin to shrink back and hide. You will be made to believe there is something wrong with you.
BUT GOD. But God has you and knows who he created. He constantly pursues you, nudging you.
His love fiercely chases you down, and he wants you to know the truth.
The truth is that there are gifts that were placed inside of you. Beautiful gifts were given to you to set you apart, but yet make up this beautiful kingdom as a whole.
It is the same Holy Spirit who continues to distribute many different varieties of gifts.
The Lord Yahweh is one, and he is the one who apportions to believers different varieties of ministries.
The same God distributes different kinds of miracles that accomplish different results through each believer’s gift and ministry as he energizes and activates them.
1 Corinthians 12:4-6
So, maybe somewhere along the way you have ventured away from who you truly are, but God is calling you back to his heart. He is calling you into his truth. He is calling you deeper. He wants to partner with you and reveal so much to you. He wants to tell you more about who he is and how much he loves you. Jesus wants you to bring you back to your original design because out of that is where we will be able to operate at our fullest. When we begin to understand who God is, and believe that he dwells inside of us, we will begin to have a greater understanding of who we are.
When we have that greater understanding of who we are in Christ, confidence begins to fill us and we are able to stand against all the things coming our way to get us off the path God has set us on. He wants to set us on that path with feet planted firmly in the truth.
“Jesus said, ‘I am THE Way, THE Truth, and THE Life.'”
John 14:6
So as we begin to align ourselves with the truth (The Word of God/The Bible), as we seek Him OVER the lies, we are aligning ourselves up with who Jesus is and His spirit will pour out wisdom and knowledge, His spirit will teach us, lead us, comfort us and we will develop a deeper revelation, love and hunger. We will be opened up more to what’s inside of us. It won’t look anything like things of this world.
Your identity is in Christ Jesus and he wants you to walk in FREEDOM. We walk in freedom when we know the truth. We walk in freedom when we know what is inside of us. We walk in freedom when we operate as the person he created us to be. We walk in freedom when we accept and believe everything inside us is good, beautiful and such a gift. We walk in freedom when make a choice to go deeper with Jesus. We walk in freedom when we peel back the layers that have left us confined to ways of this world or religion and transform our way of thinking to align with the thoughts of God himself.
So, my beautiful sister, you were created by the master creator. Everything he created is very good!
“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”
Genesis 1:31
I pray you choose to say yes to the invitation to go deeper with holy spirit and allow him to walk with you to unveil who you really are and what’s inside you.
Fear, opinions of others, ways of this world has no place at the feet of Jesus. It all must bow down to his name. It keeps us confined in a box, never allowing us to experience freedom or live our life to the fullest.
When you feel that nudging or a calling to go deeper with God or hear God speaking to you, don’t be afraid. We often think we must be qualified with some crazy high level skills or popular, in order to be used by Him, but God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called.
HE equips us.
“He chose the lowly, the laughable in the world’s eyes—nobodies—so that he would shame the somebodies. For he chose what is regarded as insignificant in order to supersede what is regarded as prominent, so that there would be no place for prideful boasting in God’s presence. For it is not from man that we draw our life but from God as we are being joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. And now he is our God-given wisdom, our virtue, our holiness, and our redemption.”
1 Corinthians 28-30
It may feel scary and big and beyond your comfort zone, but guess what? He doesn’t expect you to go full into the vision right then. He will take you into training little by little as you continue saying yes to the little things in obedience.
We have His power in us and when we activate in our gifts with our personality, our experiences, our testimonies and our faith, we can become this mighty force in the kingdom with fire burning inside us for Him. Those around us will begin to experience God through us. Its not about us, what we think we can or can not do, its always about Him. So when we begin to understand that, its easier to step into what He calls us to. The beautiful thing about it all is that He always blesses us too because of our obedience and His love and passion for us.
Saying yes to YOU doesn’t come without trials and tribulation, but it comes with a freedom, a joy and a peace that can be found no where else except from Jesus. I hope you are filled with awe and wonder as you pursue the journey set out before you and God reveals more of himself and of you to you.
Much Love,
Charleston Artist | Writer | Photographer 