Believe you are an excellent Woman or Man

When Jesus was being baptized by John in the Jordan River, He hadn’t started His ministry yet. He had never opened one blind eye, never raised the dead, never turned water into wine. He had not performed a single miracle. But a voice boomed out of the heavens, and God said, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” His Father was pleased with Him because of who He was and not because of anything he had or had not done.

We tell ourselves, “If I could break this bad habit, I’d feel good about myself. If I could read my Bible more, if I could bite my tongue and not argue so much, maybe I wouldn’t be against myself.” You have to learn to accept yourself while you are in the process of changing. We all have areas we need to improve, but we’re not supposed to go around down on ourselves because we haven’t arrived. When you are against yourself, it doesn’t help you to do better. It makes you do worse. You may have a bad habit you know you need to overcome, but if you go around feeling guilty and condemned, thinking about all the times you’ve failed, the times you’ve blown it, that will not motivate you to go forward. You have to shake off the guilt. Shake off the condemnation. You may not be where you want to be, but you can look back and thank God you are not where you want to be, you are growing. You are making progress. Do yourself a big favour and quit listening to the accusing voices. That’s the enemy trying to convince you to be against yourself. He knows that if you don’t like yourself, you will never become who God created you to be.

In Genesis 1, God had just created the heavens, the earth, the sea, the animals, and Adam and Eve. When He finished, the Scripture says, “God looked over all that He had made and saw how it was excellent in every way.” When God looks at you, He says, “You are excellent in every way.”

You may think, Not me, I have got these bad habits, these shortcomings. I have made some mistakes in the past. Get out of that defeated mentality. You may not be perfect, but God is not basing your value on your performance. He’s looking at your heart. He is looking at the fact that you’re trying. You wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t have a heart to please God. Now, quit being down on yourself. Quit living condemned, and dare to believe you are excellent in every way. Our attitude should be, ye, I may make mistakes. I have some flaws and weakness, but I am not going to live my life guilty, condemned. I know God has already approved me. I am excellent in every way. I am His masterpiece

If you are going to overcome your flaws and weakness, you have to not only stay positive toward yourself, but be bold enough to celebrate who God made you to be. Be proud of who you are. I know people who are good at celebrating others. They’ll compliment their friends and drag on a cousin. “You have to see my neighbor. He is an awesome football player. You must meet my sister. She is so beautiful.” And that’s good. We should celebrate others. But make sure you also celebrate yourself. You are smart. You are talented. You are beautiful. There is something special about you. You can’t get so caught up in celebrating others. Putting them on a pedestal, to where you think, they are so great, and I am so average. She is so beautiful, and I am so plain.

They may have more natural beauty or more talent in some area, but God didn’t leave anybody out. You have something that they don’t have. You are good at something that they’re not good at. And it’s fine to celebrate them and say, “Wow! Look how great they are,” as long as you follow it up by saying internally, “And you know what? I’m great, too. I’m smart, too. I’m talented, too.”