30 Day Challenge - Day 22

The Invalid

John 5:6-7 Amplified

“When Jesus noticed him lying there, knowing that he had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”

The invalid answered, “Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am coming, someone else steps down ahead of me.” The man Jesus was talking to in these verses had not been able to walk for 38 years. You might say that the word “invalid” summed up how he saw himself. I had a dream about my grandfather. He spent the last years of his life in bed. He was an invalid. In the dream, a friend and I went to pray for him. I asked him, “Grandpa, who told you that you were invalid?!” At that moment I woke from the dream. Notice the difference between the words invalid (in-va-lid: person disabled by disease or injury) and invalid (in-val-id: something or someone not recognized, not of any value)

Many of us have felt invalid at times. Often, it is our distorted view of who we are that causes those feelings. Sometimes it is other people that consider us to be invalid. If we see ourselves as lacking, at a disadvantage, or unattractive, it will limit us. It's not that we don't have great potential, it's that our self-image is distorted.

Have you ever looked into a magnifying mirror? At five times as large, everything we don't like is exaggerated.

The Bible says we have been made in the image of God. We are fully equipped for the purpose He's laid out for us. The enemy doesn't want us to see ourselves that way so he puts up distorted mirrors to influence our self-image.

Many of us need to flip the mirror and begin to see ourselves in the image that God sees us.

James 1: 23,24 says that God's Word is like a mirror. What God says about us is the true image we need to keep in front of us. We are not defined by people, by our past or by what didn't work out. We are defined by our Creator. When we look in the mirror of God's Word, we will see that we are valuable, talented, confident, favored, blessed, and worthy.

When we see ourselves as God sees us, it begins to heal a damaged self-image. If we continue to see ourselves in the mirror of God’s word, we are going to become what we are seeing.

As you receive communion, be reminded that Jesus came not only to save us, but also to heal our sorrows! He came so that our original, intended image, would be restored. Through the veil of Jesus’ blood we are flawless!