How to overcome insecurity. And so I want to share with you practically, seven practical
steps I've learned that you can take today to beat insecurity. Number one: Intimacy with God
cures insecurity. Intimacy is the cure for insecurity. The more you are aware of God,
the less attention you give to self. The more you are aware of self, the less attention you give
to God. Adam became aware of his nakedness and felt ashamed when the glory of God lifted after
he disobeyed God and did what God didn't call him to do. As closer you get to God, one of the first
things that happens in the presence of God is you lose attention, affection, obsession for you.
God becomes more important and then you're no longer obsessed, you're no longer depressed and
you're no longer honestly conscious. It's not that you don't exist, you're just not conscious
of you because somebody greater occupies your mind. Number two: Read the word of God until it
feeds you. A lot of Christians will read the Bible but if you want to see change in your emotions,
in your mind, you have to feed on the Bible. The Bible is the seed. The Bible is the sword.
The Bible is the hammer. The Bible is the oil. The Bible is the lamb and the Bible is also spiritual
food. "Men shall not live on every bread but live on every word they proceed from the mouth of God."
I'm paraphrasing it. Matthew 4:4 Jesus spoke it to the devil. What happened with Adam and Eve is that
they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And because they ate of that tree they
disobeyed God and then they felt naked. And then what happened is that they started to hide from
God, they started to cover themselves with fig leaves but the root cause was they ate something
they were not supposed to eat. Their eyes were opened and they saw, not God, they didn't even
see the devil; they saw their nakedness. So let me ask you a question. What are you feeding
yourself on? Because whatever you're feeding yourself is creating the feelings of yourself,
and these feelings now become the source of your focus. So to change the feeling you have to change
the feeding. So instead of reading God's Word, feed on God's Word. Meaning linger in God's Word,
take it personally, memorize scriptures, read the Bible with prayer not just with the highlighter.
Invite the Holy Spirit, begin to meditate on the Scriptures. Take the Bible seriously instead of
constantly feeding yourself on social media, how you look in the mirror. Look at the mirror
of God's Word and let that becomes a reflection of who you are and whose you are. Number three:
Don't compare yourself because you are already complete in Christ. Comparing yourself is the
thief of joy. The Bible says tenth commandment is thou shall not covet your neighbor's wife,
neighbors livestock. Pretty much God wants us to be content with what He has given us. God
wants you to count your blessings, not covet someone else's blessings. The Bible says,
"Don't fret when people succeed in their ways." Psalm 37:7. Don't let somebody's
success bring you stress. The best way to do that is to realize in Jesus you're accepted,
you are loved, you are forgiven, you're righteous, you're a royal generation, chosen generation,
royal priesthood, His own special people. You are His and therefore you don't need to duplicate
somebody else's life. There's nothing wrong with being inspired. There's nothing wrong with being
encouraged, but it's totally different when you're seeking to fit in and when you're seeking to be a
photocopy of someone else. God called you to be you. God wants you to be the best version
of you but you can't do that until you make a conscious decision not to sin by coveting and sin
by constantly comparing and looking at yourself and saying, "I am not good enough." How do you
know that you're not good enough? How do you know that your life sucks? A lot of times because we
compare ourselves to other people. The Bible says to run the race with endurance, looking not unto
other runners but unto Jesus. Each one of us have a different history, we have different gifting, we
live in a different area, we live under different circumstances. So to compare each other's success,
appearance, gifts, without putting into account each other's callings, past history, where we
grew up, is foolish; it's wrong. It's kind of like expecting a bicycle to compete with the
airplane. They're just wired differently. They're just made differently for different purposes.
It'll be foolish if a bicycle walks around crying because it can't take people into the air. Yes,
a bicycle is not an airplane but you don't use an airplane to go pick up your mail or go for a
fun ride in the park. You use a bicycle for that. Please understand God created you for His pleasure
and for His purpose. And it brings Him the most pleasure when you fulfill your purpose without
trying to be someone else God never made you to be. You know when you discover who you are in God,
when you discover whose you are because of Jesus, when you begin to live in God's Word,
you are free to be you. And this is what I found out, as you stop trying to be everybody else,
you will still learn from other people but you will lean on the Lord. You will find out soon,
so many people are gonna try to be like you. I know, it's crazy. They will be like,
man I wanna be like you. You're like no, no, no, no. The secret of being like me is be
who God called you to be. Don't compare yourself with other people. You're complete in Christ.
Don't covet someone's blessings, count your own. Number four: Don't draw your value and validation
from your visibility. So many people are crippled by insecurity for this one reason, is because they
think that being visible means being valuable. Your value comes from Jesus, what He did on a
cross, dwelling of the Holy Spirit, the love that God has shed upon you, your name written
in the book of life. You're made in the image and likeness of God. You are the one that God loves.
You are the one that carries the nature of God in the sense His likelihood. You are made in
His image and likeness, your image bearer of God. It doesn't matter how you look, okay. It doesn't
matter how much you weigh. It doesn't matter your age. It doesn't matter how much money you have in
your account. These things, they're priceless. There's no price on these things. What makes it
difficult to live in identity as a Christian is when you begin to equal value with visibility.
When you begin to think that you have to be on the stage to serve God, you have to be constantly
promoted into a place of spotlight because of your faithfulness. As a member of the body of Jesus,
as a person that probably God positioned you already to serve in your local church in His
kingdom. Please, please, I beseech you. Don't let your insecurity take you out of the place of
your effectiveness and gifting, into a place of spotlight where you were not fashioned, gifted,
anointed for and you will be weird there. You will struggle with pressure. You will deal with issues
that you were never supposed to deal with. Why? Because your insecurity took you to a place that
you have no grace for. I've seen people lose it because of that. The most amazing people
in ministry are people who know who they are in Christ. They don't need to be behind the camera,
on the spotlight or behind a microphone. But if the Lord calls them there they're comfortable
there and they don't draw their identity from that. And if something changes and they're
no longer in that place, their whole world doesn't go down because they never attached
their validation to their visibility. Number five: Criticism and compliments are not your bread; they
are your gum. If you do something well or if you don't do something well, you will be a recipient
of compliments or criticism. In fact if you do something well, you will be complimented but you
will also be criticized. There will be people who won't like you. In fact there are people who will
not like you no matter what. They didn't even like Jesus. It's not because of you. It's just because
of them. They're like mosquitoes. Mosquitoes live off of somebody else's blood. Some people
will live off of your success and so they live off of attacking, criticizing you. Otherwise they have
nothing else to do. They don't create anything, they simply just criticize anything that somebody
creates. It's normal. It's the way of life. When you're insecure you will take criticisms
personally. Number six: You must understand that your parents love is your appetizer, not
your main course. So many people, their source of insecurity is lack of validation and affirmation
from your mom or your dad. Please hear me out. I am not in any way downplaying the tragedy that we
have in our generation through fatherlessness and through abusive relationships. But your parents
probably did the best they knew how. Don't expect too much out of them and too little out of God.
Raise your expectation off of God and lower your expectation out of your parents. Bible says to
honor your father and your mother. There's not a lot of verses that say that expect out of them
to be your God. In fact parents cannot be a God for you, they were supposed to be an appetizer.
God is supposed to be the main meal. The main course. Receive the affirmation from His Word,
receive the affection by His precious Holy Spirit. You can still walk in wholeness even if you came
from a very broken family. You don't have to let that insecurity spill into your relationships
where you go give your body into sex trying to find love, or you're trying to sleep with
anything that moves trying to find validation, or you're trying to big, big muscles and
drive expensive cars, wear expensive clothes. Just so you can show off so you can get that attention
because you're craving affection. You're settling for attention because you're craving for this
affirmation. Go to God. I'm not saying that you don't need to deal with that, with the counselor,
therapist, small group leader or your mentor. But one of the best ways to deal with that is
in your relationship with God. And number seven: Learn to receive correction without feeling like
you're being attacked. It's about retraining your mind when you walk in identity. That when
somebody corrects you they are realigning you, they're helping you to grow. They're
not trying to kill you. They're trying to trim your ego, your pride and you have to pay a price
of letting go of your pride if you want to grow. Insecure people never grow because they can never
be corrected, they can never receive feedback, they can never receive any positive feedback
because they're so clinching that somebody is disapproving of them, somebody's attacking them.
When in reality somebody's just correcting their act, their work, their behavior, their craft.
Not their heart. So disconnect this whole thing that if somebody's giving you correction
they're killing you. They're not. They're growing you. And be more committed to growth
than you are to your insecurity and you will be able to take every correction in a godly way.