{"id":33714,"date":"2017-05-24T00:10:18","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T05:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/?p=33714"},"modified":"2025-07-25T14:05:59","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T19:05:59","slug":"light-as-god-sees-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/light-as-god-sees-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Live in the Light: See Yourself As God Sees You"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ladies, in this series exploring our true identity<\/a>, let’s\u00a0look\u00a0at whether you\u2019re shining the proper light on your portrait, the self-image you carry around inside your head.<\/span><\/h3>\n

Your TRUE identity comes from one single source: what God says about you. <\/span>God has declared that He <\/span>sees YOU as eternally lovable, and eternally valuable!<\/p>\n

Why, then, do so many of us live as if we don’t\u00a0believe God views\u00a0us as lovable\u00a0and worthy?<\/em> Because we DON’T view ourselves the way God does. We\u2019re like paintings hanging in a dimly lit art gallery. The outlines of our frames are visible, but it\u2019s impossible to make out the details of our features. Until God\u2019s pure, truthful spotlight shines upon us.<\/p>\n

Lurking in the Shadows<\/span><\/h2>\n

Much of the way we think about ourselves TODAY was formed during our early childhoods. These three critical questions can help you to discover why you may still be living as if you don\u2019t know that God sees you as wholly loved and cherished:<\/span><\/p>\n

1. How Much of God’s Light Was in Your Home When You Were a Child?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Were your parents and other significant adults in your life believers? If so, did they model a loving relationship with Jesus Christ? Or was their \u201creligion\u201d one of rules, prohibitions, and guilt? If the latter, you did not get a true picture of who God is or how He sees you. You may have even grown up seeing God as a demanding ogre who was ready to slap you down the moment you stepped out of line. <\/em>You may have grown up thinking that you had to earn God\u2019s love. If so, it’s likely that you believe\u00a0that your value is entirely on your performance. We can never EARN our way into Heaven. Thank God we don’t have to! We’ve already been given full access!<\/span><\/p>\n

2. How Much of God’s Light Was in the Culture Around You?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If your childhood environment was strongly influenced by apathy and\/or antagonism against God, the Bible, and Christianity, you definitely got a skewed view of the value God sees in you. Our increasingly secular society has moved from believing that each person has\u00a0intrinsic worth, to declaring that\u00a0a person’s value is determined\u00a0by circumstance and factors.<\/em> To some, an unwanted fetus has no value. For others, persons\u00a0with mental illness\u00a0have no value. To still others, people behind prison walls\u00a0have no value. And to some, only those achieving fame and fortune have value.\u00a0The truth:\u00a0God views YOU as incredibly\u00a0valuable, simply because He created you.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. How Much of God’s Light Came Through Your Peers?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What kinds of friends did you hang out with as\u00a0a child and teen? How did you and your college friends fill your time? Were your peers interested in helping you to further your walk with Jesus? Or did they influence you to push Him to the sidelines?\u00a0If your friends were living in darkness, they helped to block God\u2019s light in your life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you still allowing your peers to dictate how you feel about yourself? <\/span><\/em>W<\/span>e\u00a0will <\/span>continue to\u00a0feel diminished until we rightly sense just how valuable we are to God.\u00a0W<\/span>e can protest our worthiness until we\u2019re blue in the face, but we will NEVER change God\u2019s mind on the subject.<\/p>\n

On the days you’re not feeling great about yourself, choose to step OUT the shadows and into God’s unconditional love. Claim it. Believe it. Courageously live as the beautiful portrait God already sees<\/a>!
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This blog series is based on Josh’s book\u00a0See Yourself as God Sees You<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0<\/i>It is our prayer that during this series you come to recognize and accept your true personal identity! God couldn’t love you more!<\/p>\n

\"Light\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ladies, in this series exploring our true identity, let’s\u00a0look\u00a0at whether you\u2019re shining the proper light on your portrait, the self-image you carry around inside your head. Your TRUE identity comes from one single source: what God says about you. God has declared that He sees YOU as eternally lovable, and eternally valuable! Why, then, do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23327,"featured_media":63523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"55","_seopress_titles_title":"Illuminate Your Identity | See Yourself as God Sees You","_seopress_titles_desc":"God sees YOU as eternally lovable, and eternally valuable! Why, then, do so many of us live in the shadows, rather than God's light of grace?","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[507,508,509,510,511,178],"translator":[],"blog-author":[78],"class_list":["post-33714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-for-women","tag-depression","tag-gods-love","tag-hate-myself","tag-see-yourself-as-god-sees-you","tag-self-hate","tag-self-image","blog-author-josh-mcdowell-ministry-team"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/607\/2021\/11\/light.jpg","meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23327"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33714"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92563,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33714\/revisions\/92563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33714"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/translator?post=33714"},{"taxonomy":"blog-author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites-stage.josh.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog-author?post=33714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}