I thought it would be good for me to share where the title of this blog came from as I didn’t cook it up myself. For years and years I regretted some of the things I had done or hadn’t done in the past, can relate? In my teenage years I’d really hurt someone and I carried this with me for years. Even though I had confessed my wrong doing to God, I had asked them to forgive me (they have) I still felt ashamed and unworthy of love. I had knowingly behaved in ways that were unfitting for a Christian and although I knew I was forgiven for all of my bad stuff (sin the bible calls it) shame had eaten its way into the fabric of my soul, into who I was and who I had become. It sort of stuck to me, like an unwanted present. It weighed me down unknowingly. Until one Sunday morning I was given a little note from Heaven…

I believe as a Christian I can hear from Jesus. He is the good Shepherd and as His sheep I can hear His voice (John 10:27). So sometimes I get glimpses of images or pictures or mini-movie clips showing me things. This may sound weird but it’s a very Christian experience, as it’s written in 1 Corinthians 2:10-16:

But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. For, “Who can know the LORD’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?”

But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:10-16 (New Living Translation)

The scripture above explains that we have, if we are born-again Christians (but available to all who want it!), the Holy Spirit living in us and that we have the mind of Christ. Meaning that we can know (how cool is this!) the secrets of God because His Spirit wants to reveal them to us. Part of those thoughts God has can be exposing the lies we believe about ourselves. In the past few years I’ve discovered that there were (and quite likely are) a few lies I believed about myself, so I thought I’d share some with you. Some of these things I wasn’t even aware of that I believed them and other lies are things people said to me that I started to believe in. I believed things such as: you said you were a Christian and yet you behaved that way: you are a hypocrite! Or…I am not beautiful or…if you are not using your degrees as a stay-at-home mother (I have two Bachelor degrees and a Masters in Educational studies); you are wasting your potential, and the classic: you are not worthy of love, or this one: you are so boring! the list of lies went on and on in my head. But slowly God is helping me to look them in the eye and tell them to go. There’s this song I really like right now by Bryan and Katie Torwalt that talks about shame and where it’s rightful place is (hint: not in our hearts). It says:

Fear can go to hell, shame can go there too. I know Whose I am, I belong to You.

Prophecy Your promise, song by Bryan and Katie Torwalt
https://youtu.be/ZiuvKo-7Me

So back to that note from Heaven…

One Sunday morning I went to church and someone had a prophetic word (a message from God) about people in the room walking around (figuratively speaking) with a name tag pinned to their backs. Like, in the game ‘Who am I‘ where you put a tag on someone’s back and they then have to guess what or who they are. That morning God wanted to deal with people wearing the ‘wrong tag’ on their backs and the person giving this ‘message from God’ told us to close our eyes if this applied to you (it did, I could see an blank name tag pinned to my t-shirt on my back) and ask Holy Spirit what was written. So I did. I clearly saw the words ‘SHAME’ in my imagination. See, when we belong to Jesus, He gives us His mind (See verse 16 above) and we can learn about spiritual truths using our imaginations guided by the Holy Spirit. I believe that as Christians, who have been redeemed, we can supernaturally know things that are not revealed to the naked eye. Anyway, back to my story. We were then asked to close our eyes and exchange our tag, give it to Jesus and get a new one. So I did. I gave my tag with ‘shame’ written on it to Jesus and then waited to ‘see’ what my new tag was. And written on my new tag were these three words…

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Beloved (not rejected)

Forgiven (not guilty)

Holy (not ashamed)

For years I had shame telling me that I was not forgiven enough to be worthy to be called a daughter of God. Yes, of course as a good Christian woman of God I knew with my head that He did forgive me but I didn’t feel forgiven. I felt like the shame kept sticking to my ‘self’ and had to keep repenting of the same sins I had committed years ago. Like I couldn’t forgive myself and it had become (this sin) part of my identity, of how I saw myself. I needed to hear my Father say that I was indeed forgiven and clean (holy) but mostly that I was His beloved.

The order of the words of this new name tag is extremely important to me. See before this name tag picture, I thought that God would merely put up with me because I was a Christian so he had to like me and accept me, tolerate me because of course he had forgiven me on the cross and I had been baptised. And that I would first have to be forgiven and live a holy life (tried that? pretty hard without knowing you’re loved!) before He can call me His beloved. Before He can love me He first needs to put me in the spiritual bath so to speak. But no, He first calls me His beloved and then declares that because I am His beloved I am also forgiven and then holy. In that order. But as this was head knowledge, not heart-felt knowledge God sent me this little ‘new tag’ to confirm to me that He does not put up with us because He’s cleansed us from our sins but loves to be close to us because we are His Beloved children. As the scripture says: For God so loved the world that He sent His son to die for us (John 3:16). Don’t stop reading there. It goes on to say there is no condemnation (Romans 8:1) when you are friends with Jesus, because you are completely saved.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

John 3:17

So now I have this note from Heaven, I’ve printed the words out, framed them and put them above my bed in case I forget again! So I can be reminded that my new identity is to be His beloved. That I am forgiven (past tense) and that I am holy. Now. And… I truly believe this new name tag isn’t just for me, it’s for you too…

P.S. There’s this older song by Jason Upton I really love, called Come Up Here: it’s about Father God singing to His beloved children to come and meet him, have a little listen and let your soul soak in this truth that you are His beloved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYvuAOv6y8Q&feature=youtu.be