Crash the Chatterbox: Hearing God's Voice Above All Others (5 page)

Of course, it doesn’t hit me only when I step on the platform to preach. It’s a cycle of doubt I deal with daily. I see others who seem so great at stuff I struggle with. I am flooded with doubts about whether I have what it takes to do what God has called me to do.

In the light of scriptures like the one we just read, however, this way of thinking is unbiblical and nonsensical on every possible level.

God told Jeremiah that He knew him and had handpicked him for his task. But God had made His choice not
after
Jeremiah proved his potential as a preacher
or
after
Jeremiah demonstrated significant levels of consistency or proficiency. God chose Jeremiah
before
he was ever
born
. Before Jeremiah could do anything to merit God’s acceptance, He hit the big button.

Perhaps the light of heaven shone a little brighter over Anathoth, the small town where Jeremiah was born and raised, when God made this announcement, signifying that He had spoken the first and final word concerning the destiny of this boy:
I want him. That one. Jeremiah. He’s a good friend of Mine
.

So while Jeremiah would live to know great rejection from those he would minister to, he would never have to know what it was to be rejected by the God in whose Name he ministered. In obscurity as well as in public humiliation, he could know he was called and completely known by the One who knows all things. Not because of something good Jeremiah had done, and not to be undone by something bad Jeremiah might do at a later time.

God turned His chair around and hand selected Jeremiah to be a part of His plan before Jeremiah preached a single syllable of his first sermon.

I believe God wants to enlighten your life with this very same revelation, in this very moment. You don’t have to sing a single note to get God—or anyone else—to notice you. Because before you ever breathed, before you even had the opportunity to show off or screw up, God declared,

Put it this way: God has issued an announcement from His throne in heaven, and He wants you to know,
The audition has been canceled
.

He has not chosen you blindly but intentionally, even while knowing you inwardly and intimately. And let me tell you why this is some of the best news in the history of the universe: If this God has chosen you while totally knowing even the worst parts of you, then you no longer have to live
up
to anything. Instead, you are now empowered to live
out
of an awareness of divine acceptance.

This is the antidote to insecurity.

It means you already have the part. Now you are invited to play it with assurance. It’s probably not the part of prophet to the nations. Most of us are called to live out our callings as dads, moms, husbands, and wives. As friends, neighbors, students, and teachers. As men and women moving through marketplaces, serving in churches, contributing in our communities, and, most of all, growing in our relationship with God.

But mark this: the nature of your calling does not indicate the level of God’s approval of you. And the fact that others have gifts and opportunities you don’t have doesn’t diminish the intensity of God’s intentionality about the things He created you to do.

Now, the chatterbox will not alert you to any of this. In fact, it will insist on the opposite.

Insecurity is insidious. So it cloaks itself in the guise of comparison. Nothing can kill contentment and feed insecurity like comparison. And now, more than any other time in history, we live in a culture of incessant comparison.

I was trying to post something on Instagram the other day, and it turned into the perfect illustration of my own insecurity. I had been studying for my sermon, and I wanted to share a picture of the process. But the books in the background of the first picture I took didn’t look impressive enough.

Suddenly I became obsessed with positioning the picture just right—to show how studious I was. I must have spent ten minutes stacking and restacking the books around my desk. I knew it was getting out of control when I started pulling books off my bookshelf that I hadn’t been using to prep for my sermon—and that I hadn’t used in years—so they could be part of the picture. These were big theology books that had nothing to do with my subject, but it’s hard to beat a twelve-hundred-page lexicon when you’re trying to show the world what an intelligent preacher you are! It was silly and a little sad how much I felt the need to construct a certain image to present online. For what benefit? More Likes on Instagram. More button pushing.

I had to laugh to keep from being disgusted with myself. And, for the record, I deleted the picture. Then I got up and put the boring books back on the shelf.

This is a small, isolated example of the kind of insecurity that shows up every day. We have instant access to the lives of those we know, those we don’t, those we can’t stand, those we wish we were, those we’d give anything to measure up to.

Well, we don’t exactly have access to their lives. We have access to the parts of their lives they’d like us to see. Nobody posts the shot of Tommy karate chopping his little brother in the sternum or Mandy rolling her eyes at her mom and slamming the door because she’s not allowed to go to the movies at nine o’clock. Instead, people post the shot of Tommy holding the game ball or Mandy accepting the dance competition trophy. And the chatterbox uses all of this—the images we see of who we
think
others are and what we think they’re doing—to make us feel we’re boring by comparison. Even worthless.

This is one of the main reasons we struggle with insecurity: we’re comparing our behind-the-scenes with everybody else’s highlight reel.

We know all too well the stuff in our lives that should disqualify us from God’s love and keep us from fulfilling His purpose. We know that we’re disorganized, irritable, and easily distracted. We internalize our defects and infer that we’re the only ones who struggle with these things.

But remember: every weakness you know about yourself, God knows in greater detail than you could ever imagine. He knows the defect as well as what
causes
the defect.

But God says you are something different from your defects—something far more than your flaws.

Before you were born—before any of your defects were apparent to you—they were absolutely apparent to God. That didn’t stop Him from calling your name and setting you apart. He placed you on the earth at a certain time for a pre-decided purpose.

And even when you can’t get seem to get your act together, your identity is secure and completely intact. Because in Christ, who you are matters infinitely more than anything you do or cannot do.

Matthew’s gospel provides a beautiful picture of this reality. As you read it, look for the similarities between this account and God’s calling of Jeremiah.

Jesus had infinite power and potential. He personally embodied the most important calling and mission in history. He did so much in His lifetime that John would later say the world could not contain the books describing His works. Yet notice
when
He received His Father’s approval: at the
beginning
of His ministry—before He even officially started His mission. Now, if the Father’s acceptance of Jesus was based in something that preceded His accomplishments, what makes you think you could do anything to knock God’s socks off or to obtain His acceptance through your accomplishments?

What makes you think you have to turn your life around before you can completely commit your life to God? What makes you think you have to impress God with your obedience before He will impart His grace to you? What makes you think you have to do things to get God to like you, much less love you? What makes you think you have to be the perfect spouse or parent before God will perfectly love you?

Many Christians spend a lifetime trying to achieve something that Jesus already achieved for them. God’s acceptance isn’t based on performance. It wasn’t for Jesus. And because of what He did for you, it isn’t for you either.

The acceptance He had, you have. The love He unconditionally received, you unconditionally receive.

Yes, Jesus was the Son of God. But through Him, you are a child of God with the same privileges.
¹
That includes the privilege of having God look at you and say, “I am well pleased.”

One of the most powerful confessions you can ever learn to make starts like this: “God says I am ___________.” Then get busy learning how to fill in the blank. The Bible is full of vivid descriptions of the kinds of labels you
should
wear as God’s child.

Once you’ve made the decision to build your assessment of yourself exclusively on God’s Word, the chatterbox loses its ability to trash-talk you into submission. And the more adept you become at talking smack
back
to the chatterbox, the more ingrained the reality of who you are will become.

Crashing the chatterbox is about learning to say things like this—out loud—daily.

These five are just to get you started. We could fill the rest of the pages of this book with these kinds of statements—all made by God Himself about who He made us to be—that He desires for us to accept and
to believe
.

Here’s the problem, though. You’re likely to find it a whole lot easier to believe the things God says about Himself than the things He says about you. Have you noticed this?

For example, in John 8:12, Jesus makes a bold statement about Himself: “I am the light of the world.” As bold as that statement is, followers of Christ accept it at face value. Of course He’s the light of the world. He’s
Jesus
, you know.

But guess what? The same Jesus who called Himself the light of the world had this to say about His followers: “
You are
the light of the world.”
³

Now, this I struggle with. There’s a lot of darkness in me. A lot of ignorance and a lot of impurity. The chatterbox reminds me of this frequently.

I believe God is holy and blameless. But when He calls
me
holy and blameless, I figure He must have me confused with somebody else. Yet He means exactly what He says. And the more I rehearse what He says about me, the more my activity will align with my true identity, the more I will become what God has already said I am.

I saw a commercial the other day. I think it was for AT&T. It showed people using their products in all kinds of different settings, and it ended with a great
tag line: “It’s what you do with what we do.” In other words, we can manufacture the goods, but the way you put them to use determines their usefulness.

That’s what I’m trying to get across. God has created you, has given His Son for you, has sent His Spirit to live inside you—that’s what He’s done. He works miracles, He restores broken people, He uses the least likely and gives strength to the weak. He speaks truth over your life that is living and active. That’s what
He
does. But it’s what we do with what He does that determines our destiny.

So I confirm God’s calling on my life when I learn to affirm my identity in Him. And I activate my identity when I refuse lies and walk according to specific redemptive truth.

How do I know?

Because
God says I am
.
⁴

This confession—“God says I am …”—is the primary force that begins to reshape our paradigms by informing our identities as new creations.

Obviously, repeating these mantras every day, in and of itself, won’t make you a better Christian or guarantee your spiritual success. Repeating positive confessions by rote simply makes you more like Stuart Smalley, not more like Jesus. And just because God chose you before you were born doesn’t mean you can live like hell, take your devotion to Christ lightly, and still expect God’s perfect will to be done in your life. Scripture and history are full of cautionary tales of people who, tragically, did not complete their assignments. God had much more in store for them than they ever experienced, because they stopped short in disobedience.