Do You Need a Security Check?

When Jesus died on the cross for us, something happened that I like to call “the divine exchange.” He took away our sins and everything we are not, and then He made us right with Him and gave us access to everything He is.

God wants you to be confident, bold, fearless and free. He wants you to be healthy and whole—fully able to pursue your destiny. And He desires for you to feel good about yourself and your relationship with Him.

Look with me at Ephesians 3:17 (AMPC). It says, May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love.

God wants your security to be in Him. He wants you to be rooted and grounded in His great love for you. When you depend on anything or anyone else to give you worth and value, you set yourself up for problems.

Let’s do a security check. Take a few moments to answer the following questions:

Does your worth and security depend on your social status or how much money you make?

Is your self-esteem affected by the way you look or the clothes you wear?

Does your sense of significance depend on the approval of others?

Is your worth and identity based on being married or having children?

We can place our security in so many things. However, God doesn’t want us to put our confidence and security in anything but Jesus Christ.

I love Psalm 62:6, which says He is our “Rock.” Everything else in this world may change or let us down, but Jesus will never change or let us down!

What Keeps You “Fixed”?

In the earlier years of my ministry, I was extremely insecure. I wasn’t rooted and grounded in God’s love. As a result, when I held a conference and taught the Word, I gauged my success based on how many compliments I received at the end of the service.

Now, here’s the problem: When I received a lot of compliments, I felt good about myself and went home happy. However, if I didn’t receive very many compliments, I went home miserable and tormented myself the entire night, wondering what was wrong with me.

Thank God, He helped me to finally receive my confidence from Him and not from other people. He allowed me to see that as long as I required other people to get my “fix” and feel good about myself, I would always be miserable and live on shaky ground.

Are you depending on someone or something to keep you fixed? Does your sense of personal well-being depend on what others say or do? When you feel shaky, do you look for someone to come and help you feel stable again?

While it’s wonderful to receive love and encouragement from people, God doesn’t want our worth to depend on the approval of others. If it is, then we put ourselves in a position to be controlled and manipulated. We become “people pleasers,” willing to do almost anything to receive the approval we seek. We become more concerned with what people want us to do than what God wants us to do.

Always remember: You can’t control what everybody else thinks and does. Some people aren’t going to be happy regardless of what you do, and you can’t let their decision to be unhappy control your joy.

When our security is based on God’s love and approval, it sets us free to be ourselves and allows us to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit instead of being dictated by other people.

Do you feel like it takes a lot to keep you fixed and make you feel loved and accepted? If so, I want you to take a few moments to read Ephesians 1:4-5 (AMPC):

Even as [in His love] He chose us [actually picked us out for Himself as His own] in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy (consecrated and set apart for Him) and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love.

For He foreordained us (destined us, planned in love for us) to be adopted (revealed) as His own children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the purpose of His will [because it pleased Him and was His kind intent].

Wow! Just think about that. Before God ever created the world, He knew you and chose you to be His. It’s not like He didn’t have any other choices. He looked around and said on purpose, “I want that one!”

God loves you unconditionally. Each and every single day of your life, He is still saying, “I choose you.”

There’s No Comparison

I used to be terribly insecure. When I wasn’t trying to get people to be like me, I was feeling bad about myself and spending all of my time trying to be like them!

Years ago, I struggled badly with comparisons because of this insecurity. If we are not secure in our own worth and value as individuals, we will find ourselves competing with our friends instead of loving them.

I have a bold, take-charge, decisive personality—it’s actually a gift that God has given me to help fulfill His call on my life. Yet, for years I absolutely hated my personality. I constantly compared myself to my pastor’s wife, who was so gentle, sweet and nice to everyone. Why couldn’t I be more like her?

I also compared myself to my neighbor, an amazing homemaker who grew her own vegetables in her backyard and sewed all of her family’s clothes. I thought I should be doing that, too.

Dave and I still laugh about the pair of shorts I made for him—the pockets were longer than the shorts themselves! Needless to say, he never wore them.

The bottom line is the more I focused on comparing myself to other people, the more miserable I became!

God didn’t create me to be exactly like them—He created me to be me. When I finally learned to love and value myself the way God does, it changed everything.

Now, I still needed to change. Back then, I could be too aggressive, harsh and abrasive. I desperately required God’s help to develop the fruit of the Spirit in my life—especially qualities like kindness, gentleness and meekness.

However, God wanted me to become the best version of me, not someone else. He wanted me to embrace the things that make me different and get comfortable just being myself.

Isn’t it nice to be around people who are secure and comfortable with themselves? People who don’t always need to be complimented or propped up in order to feel like everything’s okay?

When we are secure in Christ—when we understand our worth and value in Him—it gives us confidence to be ourselves. We end up loving ourselves, which makes it easier for others to love us as well.

Remember, God thinks you are wonderful, and it’s important to see yourself the way He sees you. I encourage you to not spend too much time focusing on your faults and weaknesses or comparing yourself with others. Instead, spend time in God’s Word and allow Him to show you how special you really are.

As you begin to focus on what God thinks about you, you will be so much happier, and you will learn to truly love the person He created you to be.