Steven Furtick - You Are Not Your Mistakes
This is an excerpt from: When The Battle Chooses You
We should never let an event become our identity. Ever. Watch me work this out now. I'm talking about our adversities and our achievements. No event should become your identity. That is a fragile, flawed foundation to build your house on. One storm can knock it down. No achievement should be me in my mind. No achievement, no talent, no ability should be conflated with my character as I decide who I am. I remember a lady told me one time, "I grew up in the Lowcountry where you did". She said, "I have a bone to pick with you". I said, "A bone to pick with me? You are from the Lowcountry talking like this. Let's pick".
She said, "I've got a bone to pick with you. I listen to your sermons, and you don't talk like where you come from". She had a deep Southern accent. She said, "If you're from Moncks Corner, South Carolina, why can't I hear your Southern accent when you preach"? I said, "Lady, I don't know. I didn't take a class. I didn't have it cast out. I don't know. I can put it on anytime I want to, but I don't know. It just kind of fell off along the way". It's a good question, what she asked me. "Why don't you talk like where you come from"?
I've got a bone to pick with a lot of believers. How our mouths speak so much about what we're missing, and we claim to have Christ as the center of our lives. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God". "And through him were all things made that were made," Colossians says. So, the beginning was the Word. The Word was Jesus. Jesus is in you. If Jesus is in you and you came from him, then why do you say you can't make it? If Jesus is in you and you come from him and all the fullness of the deity dwells in Jesus… Not baby Jesus. I'm talking about reigning Jesus. I'm talking about Christ in you, the hope of glory. Touch your neighbor and say, "Talk like where you came from".
Come on. Let's practice. Say, "I'm blessed. I'm highly favored. I'm anointed for this. I'm absolutely dead smack in the center of God's will for my life. He woke me up this morning. My cup is overflowing. I owe him the praise. Do you know where I come from"? I wonder. Did you forget where you came from because of what you went through? "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…" But that's Psalm 23:4. We're not there yet. David started this whole thing off by saying, "The Lord is my shepherd". Identity. "I walk through the valley". Event.
Flip the whole thing around, and you'll feel better. Flip the whole thing around, and you'll be able to breathe again. Flip the whole thing around, and you might be surprised at what you see about your situation. No success makes me who I am. No failure limits what I can be, because the Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. We could go home, but we're not going to, because some of y'all are going through. It would shock you what someone on your row might be going through. I had two conversations in the last 24 hours that shocked me. People I had been around and had no idea what they were going through. People I was in regular contact with, and I had no idea their family member committed suicide. They didn't tell anybody. They didn't even tell their pastor. They didn't know if they could. They felt ashamed about it.
I had a conversation with someone I love very much the other day, and they made a statement that I believe expresses the sentiment of many of us, spoken or unspoken. He was in the middle of a spiraling emotional state, and he said to me, "I hate myself so much right now. I hate myself so much right now". I didn't say anything, because that kind of statement needs a little bit of space. But after he had said it as much as he needed to say it, I said, "Let's say it a little bit differently this time. Let's say it, but let's say it differently. Let's say it like we know where we come from. Not 'I hate myself right now.' 'I hate how this is making me feel right now.'" Do you see?
Now I'm talking to addicts. Not "I hate myself because I do this". "I hate how this sin chains me to the 'me' that I don't have to be anymore that is pattern program-based, not potential-conscious. I hate this event, but the event is not the identity. So now I can fight it because I am not it". Say, "I am not it". "My mama told me to pick the very best one, and I am not it". Give God praise that you're not it. "I did it, but I'm not it. I'm in it, but I'm not it. It's with me in church this morning, but I'm not it. It came with me, but it's not going to get in me, and even if it's in me, it's got to get out, because I'm not built…"