{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Who Am I Really? \/\/ Power Unlimited, Part 5","description":"One of the most perplexing questions that each of us faces in life at some point, is: Who am I? What was I made to do? All too often we go looking for the answers in all the wrong places, and the image that we build of ourselves, the understanding that we have of who we are, becomes twisted and distorted. That one thing has ruined \u2026 is ruining \u2026 many a life. One of the things that many people ponder in life is this question, \u201cWho am I?\u201d We have so many pictures and images of who we should be thrust under our noses each day \u2026 and yet none of them ring true, so we end up feeling a bit like refugees, lost. The media and the advertisers, they want to define success for us. They want to tell us what it means to be open-minded. They want to tell us what we should aspire to. They want to tell us what a happy, well adjusted family looks like, and what beauty looks like and what we have to achieve, who we have to be, what we have to look like, to be successful. They tell us if we don\u2019t look like this, we haven\u2019t made it, but we will if we buy their product and I don\u2019t know about you, but I can get so lost in that maze because my life never quite looks like those images of success that they wave under my nose. And we compare ourselves with other people, people who look successful and so often we come to the conclusion that we aren\u2019t. And so that question, \u201cWho am I?\u201d rattles around in that empty, hollow void inside. Who am I? Have you ever been to one of those fairs, you know where they have Ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds and amusements and sideshows? And in side-show alley, they have those distorted mirrors. You know, you walk in front of one and you look all tall and skinny or short and fat or all wobbly and wavy. They\u2019re good fun for a little while, about a minute or two. But imagine, imagine if our mirrors at home were like that, all distorted \u2026 not good. I remember when I was working as an IT consultant one of the clients I used to work for, the front door of their offices had this glass that was a perfect distortion of me. It just made me look a bit slimmer and a bit taller, you know I could have stood in front of that door all day and looked at myself. We\u2019d like to have a mirror like that at home, wouldn\u2019t we? Or would we? My hunch is, whenever we get a distorted image of ourselves, of who we are, that\u2019s not a good thing even if we happen to like the distorted image better than the real one. For example, the distorted image that society puts up that you can be whoever you want to be, it\u2019s all up to you, it\u2019s all out there, just go and be whoever you want to be. I\u2019m 5 foot, 9 inches or 174 cm tall, so it doesn\u2019t matter how much I want to be a basketball player, I\u2019m never going to be a basketball player. In fact there are some things in life that I am decidedly not good at. If I try to be those things, it would be a bad fit. Maybe that\u2019s why so many people aren\u2019t happy, because they\u2019re trying to do jobs or be someone that they\u2019re quite simply not cut out to be. Aspiring to something that we\u2019re never going to be any good at is one of the worst things that we can do in the world. I wonder if that\u2019s why there are so many people, who literally hate their jobs. I was looking at a recent \u2018job satisfaction\u2019 survey on the internet. Have a listen to these stats: 45% of workers say that they\u2019re either satisfied or extremely satisfied with their jobs. You know what that means? That means that 55%, or over half, aren\u2019t. Of those 45% who said they were happy, less than half again, in fact only 20% said that they felt really passionate about their jobs. That means that 80% of people don\u2019t feel passionate about their jobs and 33%, fully a third believed they\u2019d reached a dead end in their careers, there was no hope for a future. 21% were eager to change careers. I think that these statistics are a tragedy. The vast majority of people aren\u2019t passionate about what they do every day. So many people aren\u2019t enjoying their lives. But \u2026. let\u2019s look at the flipside of that coin. There\u2019s a whole bunch of people wandering around in life, believing with every fibre of their being, that they\u2019re worthless. \u2018Oh, I\u2019m only a stay at home mum. I\u2019m only a clerk. I\u2019m not as smart or as good looking or as talented or as successful or as wealthy or whatever as the next person.\u2019 So many people and advertisers and product manufacturers and self styled guru\u2019s out there want to tell us who we should be and how we get there and if we aren\u2019t we need to get onto their program. Amidst all of that, here\u2019s a question, who am I? Who are you? In the cosmos, in the scheme of things, how do you define your worth and who you actually are? And if you\u2019re living your life that way, then you are living a powerless life. A life that will, ultimately, count for nothing. In a very real sense, that was the life that I was living, until I discovered what God said about me. How God sees me. What His view of me from Heaven\u2019s balcony looks like. And that\u2019s something that you find in the Bible over and over again. I want to set you a challenge today, to read Ephesians Chapters 1 to 3 \u2013 only a few pages \u2013 and to write down all the things that just those three chapters say about you. Let me just give you the first few: You are a saint, grace and peace are yours, you are already blessed with every spiritual blessing, you were chosen before the creation of the world, predestined, adopted into God\u2019s family, redeemed, forgiven, God\u2019s grace is being lavished on you, wisdom and understanding are yours, God\u2019s will is made known to you \u2026 and we haven\u2019t even arrived yet, at the tenth verse of the first chapter. Do you get it? The Bible presents a radically different view of who you are. The Bible tells you who God says you are. So instead of believing the distorted images that the world reflects back at you, you can see, a crystal clear, accurate representation of who you are. As one of my Bible College lecturers, Dr Barry Chant, often used to say \u2013 you and I need to ditch our self image, and develop a faith image, by discovering and believing what God says about you. Because when you know who you really are, who you are in Christ, you will have laid hold of the power to be who God made you to be. It\u2019s a power that will completely and utterly and radically transform your life. You see God is no other pedlar of good philosophies or belief systems; He\u2019s not some distorted mirror of low self\u2013esteem or unrealistic stereotypes. If God is truly God, if God made you and me, how does He see us? The answer to that question tells us who we really are. And not knowing who we are is like trying to navigate your place from A to B, with an inaccurate map. Blind Freddy can see that that\u2019s no way to live life. I come back again, to the many people I speak to about the problems that they\u2019re experiencing in life. When I ask them \u2026 how often do you read your Bible, they invariably tell me, in a low voice, with obvious embarrassment \u2026 Well, not very often. Okay then, so when was the last time you opened your Bible and spent just five minutes listening to what God wants to tell you? The answer? For many it\u2019s months and even years ago. Who am I? If that\u2019s a question that you want the answer to, a question let me say that you want the right answer to, if you want an accurate map for your life, then the only place that you\u2019re going to find it is in God\u2019s Word. Because when we come to His word, the Bible with questions like \u201cWho am I?\u201d, His Spirit breathes those truths into our hearts. I can\u2019t do that for you, only you can do that with Him, only He can do that for you and that stuff is the stuff that\u2019s in the Bible because all of us who are led by God\u2019s spirit are children of God. So let me take you back to that challenge. Open your Bible, go to Ephesians Chapters 1 to 3 in the New Testament. Read them. And write down everything that you find in those few sort pages that tell you who you are. I found thirty statements about my identity. Let\u2019s see how many you can find. Right them down, ponder them, believe them \u2026 and tell me then if you don\u2019t find power unlimited to live your life. ","author_name":"A Different Perspective Official Podcast","author_url":"http:\/\/christianityworks.com","html":"