The Naked Bride

     Welcome to all who came for the controversial blog title! Since you’re here... Picture the scene. It’s Sunday morning. You’ve not had the best of weeks. You fell into that sin you said you’d stay away from and you’re feeling the emotional effects of it. Your faith in God is feeling more and more uncertain. Someone comes up and asks you how you are. What do you say? Or let’s try this one. A special guest speaker visits your church. They’re a big time evangelist. They share all the intimate details of their drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll testimony, how God reached in and pulled them out of thick darkness into light and restored them. There’s not a dry eye in the house. 

     In the Church it has somehow become unacceptable for us to have problems. Getting dressed in your Sunday best must include the “Sunday Smile” that assures everyone that everything is great and you’re going from glory to glory! We blurt out the "God is good" and the "I'm just trusting God brother"* while we cry inside. We celebrate testimonies about trials and struggles of various kinds but the story cannot be shared until the final battle is fought and won. I believe this attitude is crippling the Bride of Christ.

     To the rest of the Western World, the Church has often been recognised as a beacon of judgementalism, double-standards and hypocrisy and I think this is part of the problem. Somewhere along the line we've instilled fear into people that comes from judgement and we've forgotten 1John 4:18 which says: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” Although we desperately need help when we’re struggling or things aren't going well, fear keeps us from coming clean. It may be fear of being judged by members of the church, fear of being punished by leaders or fear of losing the appearance of being a Super-Christian. Whatever. Ultimately our actions are being dictated by fear and that is not a healthy way to live.

     The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and of knowledge (Proverbs 9:10; Proverbs 1:7) and it should be foundationalto our lives. The deepest awe and respect for the power and authority of God should guide us through life and the decisions we make. I've talked with some friends lately about what it means to fear the Lord. Is it just about respect? Is it about being afraid? Although I think there are elements of both in there we found two quotes really helpful: 

"The fear of God is the death of every other fear; like a mighty lion it chases all other fears away."

"The one who is afraid of the Lord stays away. The one who fears the Lord stays close." 

     1John encourages not to allow fear to keep us away from God but actually to draw us to Him. He is the One who forgives, cleanses and heals us! It's like getting shot but staying away from the hospital because they will want to remove the bullet and clean and dress the wound! In the Church we often trip each other up in this area because we don't act like God. When someone makes a mistake we can be so quick to judge them or keep them at arm's length and make them feel like an outcast. We we're the one who made the mistake we can be quick marginalise ourselves because we don't feel worthy to be in community and certainly not to be in the presence of God.

     I think we’re forgetting the kinds of people Jesus hung out with. I'm not just talking about the “sinners”, look at the disciples! They had issues with anger and problems with greed. They were elitist and argumentative. James and John had homicidal thoughts (Luke 9:54), Peter was always ready with something stupid to say (read any of the gospels!) and Judas was a thief and... well...you know. 

There was a level of openness and honesty that Jesus had with the disciples that we need to see more in the Church today. Think about it. Think about how you behave when your church leaders are around. If any of us were hanging around Jesus we'd be on our best behaviour trying so hard not to slip up! There's something about the presence of Jesus that brings out the best in you - to be celebrated as well as the worst in you - to be corrected. They felt so free to be themselves around him that their faults would be exposed and when they were, in His love, He would either gently point them in the right direction or outright rebuke them and then they could make changes in their lives and carry on. Jesus says that when as little as two or three Christians gather together in His name, His presence is made known (Matt 18:20). We should expect to encounter the same freedom as the disciples when we meet certainly when we meet with God and also when we meet with other believers but for a lot of us, sadly that isn't the case.

     There’s two sides to this problem. On the one hand I think we can be quite wimpy when it comes to being corrected. This is a particular area of struggle for me. Sometimes I can be so insecure and so immature that when someone challenges me on sinful attitudes and practices I take it personally and distance myself or maybe even rebel against them (Proverbs 9:8). “Who do they think they are telling me that when they do this?!” or “What I do is none of their business!” or "They don't really understand the situation!" We even sometimes use Scripture to justify ourselves! 

On the other hand we suck at rebuking each other in love! We see correction as a duty we must fulfil in order to be right with God. We're just trying to purge the sin from among us Old Testament style and I think this is a mistake. While the Bible tells us to bring correction into each other’s lives we must remember that it is for our mutual benefit as the Church. As a community. So all of our rebuking has to come from a place of love. That’s how He does it (Rev 3:19). Without love we end up hurting people and causing them to react badly. I had a priceless friend as a teenager who would come to me and say something like “You know I'm for you and not against you right?” I’d then brace myself because I knew some loving correction was soon to follow and I'd take a shot in the pride. I truly knew she loved and valued me and wanted me to grow in God so I was happy to hear what she had to say. I've written a longer blog about this which you can find here: http://peoplebeingreal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/taking-hit.html

     Isolation is one of the devil’s main weapons against Christians. Whether it’s physically or emotionally the devil wants to get you alone. Secret sin is a massive killer of Christians because it cuts you off from the life-giving love and restoring forgiveness Jesus has instilled in the Church (John 20:23). I believe that something we NEED to see appearing in the Church now is an increase in openness and acceptance amongst believers. I'm NOT saying we all have pity parties where we confess sin to each other and pat each other on the back. NO! Instead what is needed is a greater revelation of our own sin against God and God’s forgiveness for us (which will keep us from trying to judge anyone else) an increase in supernatural love for each other so that our seeds of correction find good soil and a deeper understanding of community that leads to us supporting each other through the tough times that are real until we’re made whole. Finding people who will constantly speak our true identity over us and remind us of who Christ has made us is vital as well as taking up Paul's charge from 1Thessalonians 5:16-18. We should be celebrating the testimonies all the way through the process, not just at the end!

     Let’s get back to His original intention. Mankind was created to be naked in their relationship with God, vulnerable, honest and without shame. That's how we're supposed to be..but definitely with clothes!  If Jesus isn't ashamed of us, we shouldn't be ashamed of ourselves. (Hebrews 2:11)

Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments!

End Notes

*A lot of us have been taught the principle of "positive confession" i.e. speaking positively in the midst of negative situations. I think that this is a powerful tool when used correctly but it is a principle, not a magic formula that fixes problems. If we're not careful, we develop a culture of positive confession that actually becomes a culture of lies because we no longer share the truth of what is happening with each other which cuts us off from each other. Positive confession should either come from faith (believing what God has already told you) or it should stir faith in you. It is not a substitute for faith. 

Sexual Purity: Part 1 - The Awkward Moment When Watching Porn Doesn't Make You a Man

Welcome to Part 1 of the Series. Please have a read of the Intro before you go any further!

     The first author I want to share with you goes by the name John Eldredge. He wrote a book called Wild at Heart which describes the way a man carries the wounds of his heart and how he responds to the world. John talks about how a man's heart is made to live passionately but a combination of wounds and disappointments he picks up during childhood, his own sin and the structure of society can rob him of that passion.* What's that got to do with pornography you ask? Well let's hear a little from Mr Eldredge:

     "If a man does not find those things for which his heart is made, if he is never even invited to live for them from his deep heart, he will look for them in some other way. Why is pornography the number one snare for men? He longs for the beauty, but without his fierce and passionate heart he cannot find her or win her or keep her. Though he is powerfully drawn to the woman, he does not know how to fight for her or even that he IS to fight for her. Rather, he finds her mostly a mystery that he knows he cannot solve and so at a soul level he keeps his distance. And privately, secretly, he turns to the imitation. What makes pornography so addictive is that more than anything else in a lost man's life, it makes him FEEL like a man without ever requiring a thing of him. The less a guy feels like a real man in the presence of a real woman, the more vulnerable he is to porn." - Wild at Heart

     Sorry lads but I'm gonna have to rat us out to the ladies reading now.  Most boys (not all) continually feel like their masculinity is under question, so because they're not convinced that they're a "real man", they feel like they have to do things to prove it to themselves and to others. They may not be thinking in their brain "Stand back everyone! I must prove to all that I'm a MAN!" But if you could ask a man's heart directly why he does what he does, you'd probably make some interesting discoveries. Sir Eldredge (yes I've knighted him, read the book and you'll see why) says that there is a question that haunts every man's soul. It's right on the surface and clear for some but deep down, buried and hidden to others. That question is simply any variation of "Have I got what it takes?". It's a question of strength, ability, skill and effectiveness. Any situation that might give a negative answer they will automatically shy away from it and give excuses e.g. "Oh that's for girls, I don't like playing football, I just think it's boring."

     John is basically saying that pornography is a coward's route to sexual intimacy. The woman on the screen is under his control. He doesn't have to commit to her, he doesn't have to romance her, he doesn't have to respect her, he doesn't have to be vulnerable with her, he doesn't have to listen to her, he doesn't have to cater to her needs, he doesn't even have to talk to her! He can just use her to satisfy himself and be done with her. His strength and masculinity will never be called into question. She will never reject him. In fact the woman on the screen will probably tell him how great he is and how happy he makes her. 

     Let me take a moment to address some questions to the gents reading this. Have a look at your life. Are you drawing a sense of accomplishment from pornography? Do you brag about it to your friends? Does it make you feel like a man? Does it make you feel powerful? Let's go a little deeper. Maybe you don't actually have an issue with pornography, that's great! But are you using your relationships with women to make you feel like a man? Do you try and see how many girls you can get to like you at once? Have you ever broken up with a girl first because you thought she would dump you? Do you feel intimidated, threatened or invalidated around confident and independent women? 

     If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be a boy who hasn't had his question answered and is taking it around as a little survey to God's daughters. You may be a dude who doesn't know what it's like to live passionately from your heart so you pretend not to care about anything because it's easier. You may appear confident on the outside but are actually a guy who is inwardly, desperately needing to be validated. God the Father wants to answer that question for you and seal up the holes in your heart with His love. If that last sentence made you squirm, I'm talking to you sir! I recommend you buy John's book. If you're a young man and can't afford it but really want it, contact me and I'll gladly get a hold of it for you.

More on that next time.
Thank you for reading!

End Notes
*Many of John's points are applicable to men and women but the book is written for men in general.

The Public Secret Soul - Part 1

     Hey guys, I'm becoming increasingly aware that one of the biggest boundaries to us developing real, authentic relationships with each other is social media. Don't run away! This isn't just another "let's have a bash at social media" blog I promise... I just want to look a little at what I feel is one of the (very) negative effects of one of the ways we seem to use social media. I use social media a lot and struggle with some of the issues I want to discuss so I'm speaking from my own experiences as well, not some high horse mentality. I'll say from the start that I am totally not immune to this but maybe this post will help me and you too! Wana ride this crazy train with me? No? Ok, maybe see you next time....as for the rest of you, slap on your 3D glasses! It's gonna be a bumpy ride!
...............
.................unless you're just sat at a computer screen in which case it's probably not. Sorry.

Too Much Information...

     Ok so personally I think it should be weird for you to get a breakdown of every detail of my day. Chances are, if you're reading this blog, you don't know me very well (if you don't know me at all, wow thanks for reading my blog!). I think people are naturally social. We like to hang out with people we know and swap stories. Since celeb mags are still being bought and sold we also know that we like to know personal things about people we don't really know either. Reality TV show ratings tell us we love watching people and knowing what they are doing, without them knowing we're watching them and the comments section of youtube tells us we LOVE to make our opinion on everything known! All of this is sometimes to an obsessive degree (you know who you are) and were we to do it in the world beyond cyber space we'd soon find ourselves in jail, in a mental institute, with a warning from the police or at least with a sore nose. The issue is, today this sort of behaviour has become totally normal, at least to those of us who have the internet following us around in various forms. I want to look at this a little and try to reflect on the ways it affects us in our relationships with each other and if you're a Christian, with God. 

     Technology has become the megaphone of the human mind and today there are just so many ways to make your thoughts heard aren't there? Blogs, vlogs, clogs...ok maybe not clogs but you could definitely post a picture of your clogs and tell everyone how you feel about them! Tweets and statuses also help you to let the world know how your day is going so that the instant you have a thought, you can make it so that anyone in the world with internet access can know exactly what you think about...you know, stuff!! Positive or negative! "My boyfriend broke up with me!" "I met a celebrity!" "I hate Margaret Thatcher." "I love chocolate." We even post statuses about being annoyed about other people posting statuses that we don't like! Like I said before this isn't just another rant on social media. I just want to take a bit of a closer look at what's going on behind some of our online behaviour because I think it may be affecting something I consider pretty precious.

     Have you ever been to the doctor and they tapped you in the knee with a tiny hammer and your leg twitches a tiny bit? It's no big deal but you freak out like it just talked to you or something!! It's called a reflex right? I think in the West a new reflex has developed in the human body. It starts in the brain. We have a thought, or a feeling about something we see or something that happens. It's usually not actually a big deal but suddenly electronic impulses fly from our brains down our arms into our fingers and before we know it, BAM!! It's all over some social media website, dripping with hashtags and exclamation marks!!! When we snap out of it all that's left is an insatiable longing and desire to see someone like or comment on what we've posted be it a blog (cough cough), a status or an instagram edited sepia photo. We yearn for hearty approval of the article we posted that we didn't write and this somehow makes us feel fulfilled. Validated. We're ready to bark at and joust with anyone who doesn't agree and chest bump and high five everyone who does (All of this looks a little different among the Church community but we'll get to that in the next post).

The Soul and the Secret Place
     So what's the big deal? What's the point? What's the concern? There's two actually. One is the soul. Yes the soul and the other is... "Dude what the heck does the soul have to do with Facebook and Twitter?" Since you're here and apparently willing to read on (even though you rudely interrupted me), I'll try to explain my thoughts. First of all, there are lots of definitions of what the "soul" of a person is. I'm not going super deep on that one right now, I'll just let you know that when I say "soul" I'm talking about your mind, will and emotions. If it helps, whenever you read soul say "mind, will and emotions" in your head okay? Awesome. I think that we're paying less and less attention to what's going on in our soul before shooting it out all over the internet where people can affirm or wound us. We're either regurgitating stuff we read or watch or we're displaying the ongoings of our personal lives for all to see or we're photographing everything and anything. Many of us are no longer taking  time to mull things over, take moments in or even enjoy them before sharing them with the world! My friend Dave challenged me as a group of us were walking down the street doing something pretty weird and hilarious and I immediately went for my phone to make a video. "Just enjoy the moment" he said. Simple but profound. I think this is dangerous. I'm not at all saying that posting about your day or taking photos or any of this stuff is inherently "bad" by the way so please keep reading.

     My second concern is just that we're losing our sense of privacy and the value for our souls* as well as what some Christians call the "Secret Place" (more on that in Part 2). We're giving the keys to our souls away for free! People used to have to get to know you before they knew your relationship troubles! People used to have to come to your house before they saw what you had for dinner! We end up feeling close to people who really aren't sharing our lives with us. Social media seems to amplify our insecurities too. What did we do before we had to be constantly aware of trying to impress everyone we knew with the harrowing and daring tale of our trip to the bus stop in the rain? What did we do before we had to worry about getting just the right shading on our instagram photo to ensure people thought we really time-travelled to the 50s? What did we do before...you get the picture. THIS IS WEIRD!! For most of us, we probably just enjoyed the moment and shared the stories with our close friends and the odd stranger on the train! For some of us I think social media is really a way of making ourselves and our lives feel more special and I think that's sad. We allow people to judge our lives through likes and comments or the lack thereof and these judgements can then shape our view of ourselves and our lives. What if all my friends hate the film I just tweeted that I love?! Do I change my opinion on it? "Well it really wasn't that good..." We're letting other people do our soul-searching for us! What's up with that?!?!

     I think people need to have friends. Good friends, close friends. But friends shouldn't entirely replace your inner world and your interaction with your soul. Before you think I'm getting all weird and esoteric (a cool word I learnt) I'm just talking about being more intentional in thinking about what goes through your mind, the things you want to do and the way you feel about stuff before immediately shoving them online. Let's be real, a lot of us are seeking validation from our online buddies. We want everyone to believe our life is amazing, maybe even better than theirs!! We want them to know we're really witty, maybe even wittier than them!! Some of us intentionally post very little on social media but the motive is the same. We want people to think we're too cool or too busy for that stuff. We want them to think better of us, maybe even better than themselves. Have you spotted yourself anywhere in this blog yet? I find asking yourself some questions can really help you get beneath the surface of what's going on in your soul and why (the Holy Spirit is very good at being honest with you if you suck at it yourself). It's ok to have needs but how you get them met is very important for the health of your soul. Do you tag tons of people in your statuses about events so that other people can think that you're really popular going to events with lots of people and that you're loved by everyone? When God says something to you do post it up straight away so everyone can see or do you actually talk to Him about it?

I said I'd get personal with the Christians earlier and now seems like a good time. To take a break. You can leave your comments and questions here if you like or if you want you can jump over to Part 2

Thanks for reading!

Insecurity: Nature's Cover-All

Fear is one of the greatest enemies of deep, meaningful and developing relationships between human beings and it manifests itself in a number of ways. When we're afraid in dangerous situations, we instinctively do things to protect ourselves and the parts of us that will feel the most pain. We either become defensive or we lash out! It's the same in our relationships with each other. When fear comes between us as people, our instinct is to guard against pain or inflict it first. In this post I'd like to talk a bit about one of the ways fear can operate in us and outwork itself in our behaviour and relationships. As you've probably guessed from the title, I'm talking about Insecurity.

What is it and what does it look like?
By insecurity I mean being constantly moved and shaken by the opinions of others* towards you, your thoughts and attitudes or your way of life. Insecurity is an issue of identity and whenever someone or something challenges an area of our lives in which we place our identity, our level of insecurity gets put on display. Bill Johnson once said that "Insecurity is wrong security exposed" meaning that when our trust and identity is placed in the wrong thing, we will always be insecure. A lot of people like to think that insecurity is just something that bothers children and teenagers whereas adults are more secure and mature. I personally don't think that's true. I'd say in a lot of cases, our insecurities are most exposed during our teenage years as we go through puberty and all sorts of physical and emotional changes in a diverse environment but we then either adopt them as "personality traits" and allow them to define us, judging each other by them or we learn how to hide them convincingly. Sadly in the Church insecurity can pass for humility and can be encouraged and praised and therefore emulated. Trouble! Jesus wasn't insecure despite the fact that He actually KNEW what people were thinking about Him. But more on that later...

So let me ask you, do you think you're a secure person? Being secure is not the same as being good at or sufficient in everything that you place your identity in. Often people who claim to be secure on this basis get very upset when either their performance is mocked or their position is challenged. Stereotypical examples? Sheila, who claims to be secure in her appearance when she is apparently the most attractive girl around and receives a lot of male attention. This security is tested when a girl who is deemed more attractive than her comes in and the male attention shifts. Bruce has the biggest muscles in his social group. If people comment on him looking weedy or if another guy with bigger muscles shows up and Bruce doesn't start hitting the gym hard, we know he's probably secure! As I mentioned before, insecurity is an issue of identity. When something is secure, it is safe, fixed, immovable. If someone's words can reduce us to a self-conscious mess, we may have some insecurity to work out of our lives!

Fear of failing in the eyes of others is at the root of insecurity which actually exposes the fact that our understanding of personal success lies in the opinions of other people. If we can stop at this moment and look at the logic of that, we see that it's crazy! There will be as many different opinions of us out there as there are people! One of the ways we can wrongly convince ourselves that we're no longer insecure is by only hanging out with people that either like us or are like us. These people are far less likely to challenge our thoughts and ideals, call us names or disagree with us. We no longer feel as though we need our guard up because we believe we can be ourselves with these people. This level of openness makes us feel as though our insecurities have disappeared and we're now a well-rounded, confident individual ready to take on the world. We're likely to find out the truth when we're in the absence of our trusted group of friends. What happens when we meet new people? What happens when we enter a room alone? Are we struck with fear? Do we change our behaviour to fit the people around us? Do we become painfully aware of everyone's eyes? Are we hoping that our trousers don't roll up and reveal our "Wednesday" socks on a Thursday? Insecurity is also being unable to be yourself when those around you aren't like you. 

     The fear of not measuring up to people's expectations can pretty much be crippling. Insecurity becomes a lens through which you see the world, filtering out positivity giving you the impression that as you do and say things, you're walking on a tightrope. You automatically interpret people's opinions of you to be negative if they are not immediately positive**. If you went to a school where uniform was compulsory, you know what I'm talking about! "Own clothes day" was make or break! Up until this point you were equals with everyone and maybe even considered cool but an out of season jumper, a holey trainer or your WWJD t-shirt could ruin all that! You spent the night before carefully crafting your outfit for the next day (the scary part is that you probably spent the rest of the day judging everyone else by their clothes as well!) because you just had to get this right. Putting on whatever was clean never even crossed your mind. Maybe that wasn't you but situations like this in school tend to prepare us for life. We often have this expectation that people are going to judge us no matter what and that can be scary if we don't already know who we are. Very few teenagers know who they are and so the cruel labels that others want to dish out to them are terrifying because if you don't know who you are, you don't have a reason to object to someone who claims they do. "Geek", "Gayboy", "Ugly", "Bible basher", "Emo" etc etc. All weapons in the hands of other people who are probably just as scared and confused as you. Knowing who you are takes away the power of labels and looks. 

Potential cover-ups...
I've found that there are plenty of ways that insecurity can be covered up and disguised and pass for security. One that I've noticed that may be less obvious is perfectionism. In some cases, but not all, I believe perfectionism is a fear of imperfection fuelled by the belief that people will judge us on the quality of what we produce or what we do. That can be really intimidating and can even scare us into doing nothing aka apathy (apathy is really just a fear of failure). Perfectionism often gets praised because the rest of the world gets to see the positive fruit e.g. perfectly formed sculptures, perfectly written poems, perfectly cooked dishes. We can raise perfectionists up as heroes and I definitely believe some of them are but I also think that some of them are prisoners of the opinions of others forced to work down the mines of solitude, disappearing deeper and deeper into themselves and only emerging when they believe they have something that will be of worth to the world instead of understanding that they are of worth. We can defend our perfectionism by claiming that we "just want to do a good job" or that "if something is worth doing, it's worth doing well" but this is often just a way of turning our weaknesses into apparent strengths which is another clever defensive manoeuvre for Team Insecurity***.

     Another potential cover up is continually talking about how secure we are and outwardly judging others that we think are insecure. "Gosh, I wish those girls would have more respect for themselves." "He's just fishing for a compliment because he's insecure." "I really don't care what people think of me." "I don't need to wear make-up because I'm happy with myself the way I am." Sometimes I hear people say these things or I say them myself and I hear the faint echo of hollowness and it becomes apparent that the speaker is simultaneously trying to convince themselves and their audience of what they're saying. If I came up to you and told you I was a human being, I hope you wouldn't be too surprised but I expect you'd be a little confused. "That's obvious" you'd think "Why is he telling me that?" We don't go around telling people that we're human beings because it's obvious. We know it enough to not feel the need to convince others and we know others know it enough to not need us to tell them. If I'm constantly talking about how buff I am or how much I've been to the gym, it's likely I'm looking for some validation. I think it's the same with insecurity. The more I feel the need to tell you how secure I am, the less secure I probably am. Tricky.

Believing that the quality of our existence is validated by other people and what they think often leads us into ill-advise relationships (maybe romantic ones but not necessarily) with people who will a) tell us we're amazing ALL THE TIME and keep our insecurities at bay; b) give us the appearance of being a valid member of society by having a boyfriend/girlfriend or c) treat us terribly as we think we deserve because we've decided our insecurities are the same as our identity. All of these relationships are just about treating the symptoms, not finding a cure. It's about as affective as putting on a new shirt to heal your bullet wound. The problem is that the relationships are likely to end (badly, loudly and messily with lots of smoke) and when they do our insecurities are upset that we left them alone for so long and they come back with a vengeance! We then try to do more extreme things to quiet them again. Don't get me wrong, what people think of us is important and can be helpful but it's not the last word in our identity or our worth.
Sometimes, in order to in-courage ourselves or someone else, we first have to expose fear. As they say, courage isn't the absence of fear it's action in the presence of it. If we want to be bold enough to overcome insecurity in our lives we need to admit that it's there. That means no cover-ups, no denial, no treatment of symptoms. Then we're ready to deal with the problem.

What's the answer?
Well let's look at Jesus (if you're not a Christian carry on reading but I'm talking to Christians in this bit. If you want to get to know God and have a relationship with this Jesus, let's talk). He is our role model and we're supposed to be becoming more like Him so what were His tactics when insecurity came knocking at His door? We know that the devil went after Jesus' identity in the wilderness while He was fasting, "If you are the Son of God..." He would challenge Jesus to prove His sonship i.e. prove His identity was as solid as He thought. Instead of being provoked by the audacity of a created being challenging the Godhood of the Eternal Son and vaporising him by whipping out some unapproachable light, Jesus just quoted Scripture. Interestingly He didn't quote the Scriptures that spoke of Him and His identity as the Son and the Christ, but only those that directly responded to the devil's attempts to call Him out. He did this until the devil had nothing else to say and awkwardly walked off (I imagine there was laughter and cheering in Heaven). This is important for us to understand. Sometimes we get our identity challenged by people (or the devil) and we fly into a self-justifying frenzy! Sometimes it's external for all to see, sometimes it's internal and we pretend not to care but either way it's happening instead of us remembering what God says about us. Let's look at Jesus again in John 5. Don't worry, I'll get it for ya! Red print and everything! You're welcome.

31“If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. 32There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is true.

33“You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. 34Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. 35John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.

36“I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. 37And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, 38nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. 39You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

41“I do not accept glory from human beings, 42but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. 43I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. 

Basically some guys tried to step in the ring with Jesus like satan did but check out how He responds. He says's it's not even about what He says about Himself but what the Father says about Him. He tells the guys straight that the Father is the only one He will be listening to when it comes to defining His identity. He says that He's not bothered about human glory because these dudes would be ready to embrace another person that was promoting themselves because they'd recognise their own kindred spirit of pride in them (my interpretation). So what can we learn? Jesus says that He knows that the testimony of the Father about Him is true. How? Whatever God says, is. If it wasn't before it becomes. "Let there be light" Erm sorry God, light doesn't exist here I don't think we can just do that... Haha nope! Light came into being because He spoke it. The creative voice of God is a beautiful thing but when it gets applied to your life, it's still true. If we want to find our identity we need to know what God says about us! A lot of people like to promote positive self-talk and a positive mental attitude (PMA, shout out to Kriss Akabusi and my 90s kid massive) and I'm not against that but I do think it doesn't cut it when it comes to identity. I can tell myself all day that I'm a world class ballet dancer but that won't make it true. We need to hear from God concerning ourselves and regularly too if we want to know who we are and be secure in it, not just because it helps us to remember but what He says about us actually MAKES us who we are. It's SO important for us as Christians to be constantly growing in our security and identity because it prevents most of the relational issues we have in the Church. If we're secure we don't need to judge others out of fear of them judging us. If we're secure we don't need to form exclusive cliques to keep our insecurities safe. If we're secure we don't need to keep each other at arm's length to avoid being challenged on our lifestyle. If we're secure we can have healthy, vibrant platonic and romantic relationships and fulfil John 13:35.

Final Thought
I was once speaking to some non-Christian girls I met on the streets of Oldham about God and one of them suddenly asked me with a slight impression of desperation, "Would God still love me if I did pornographic stuff?" I've got to say the question caught me off guard haha but the answer came out of my mouth quicker than I could think it: "God loved you before He made you so it's never been about what you do."
Try and wrap your heart around that.

End Notes
*Listening to wise counsel and allowing it to affect your decisions isn't the same as being insecure.
** If this sounds familiar, check out my blog on rejection: http://peoplebeingreal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/the-rejects.html
***Here's a link a blog on weaknesses: http://peoplebeingreal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/taking-hit.html

Thank you for reading. Let me know your thoughts and if there were any typos!