Your self-image might be limiting your potential.

Since when was the presence of an enemy and an

indication of the absence of God?

This is what I want to ask you.

Since when did God say that I will prove that

I am with you because no enemies will be against you.

Since when did God tell you that the proof of

his presence was the absence of trouble? But something in

them got really twisted. I guess you could say they

started looking at the wrong mirror, and they started talking

about the Anakites. These were legendary giants that occupied the

land of Canaan, and they were like, man, the grapes

are big, and the and the valleys are fertile, and

the land is rich, and the possibility is great, and

the opportunity is open, and it's even better than we thought.

It's even better than we imagine.

But the giants, the giants, they're they're they're bigger than

we are. And watch how their self image limited their potential.

There's a there's nothing in numbers thirteen where they shrink

God down. They still know they have a big God.

It's not that they shrink their God, they shrink themselves

to the level of their situation.

I'm preaching to.

Somebody today who believes that God is big. But until

you see yourself as made in the image of the infinite,

unlimited all wise, ever knowing God, you will stay stuck.

One verse. I want to show you.

I wonder if you ever felt this way, they say,

And there we saw the Nephilum, the sons of Anak,

who come from the Nephilum, And we seemed to ourselves

like grasshoppers, and so we seem to them. That's a

very powerful theological statement and psychological statement, because it says

that the way you see yourself is so important that

it can actually create a reality that is contradictory to

your true identity. And remember, God is forming them as

a nation. He's making them a nation. He's making a

great nation. He saw them out of Egypt. He's done

great things. But now they see a giant. And so

they come to a strange conclusion. Our enemies are so big.

There's no way we can do it. This challenge is

so insurmountable. What's in front of us is so much

bigger than us. There's no way we can do it,

and we can't go forward. And they didn't, and they

died in the desert. My question is why would you

choose to see yourself through the eyes of your enemy?

Why would you give your enemy a mirror to show

you who you are? We do this all the time.

We pick the worst possible thing about.

Ourselves, the things that we can't change, the things that

we don't like, and then we use that as a

mirror to try to get a sense of who we are.

And we lower our ambition to the level of our

worst tendency, and we forget.

That we are made in the image.

Of God because we are too busy looking at our

lives through the eyes of our enemy. Here's how they

could have seen it. If what's in front of us

that God has called us to fight is that big,

I wonder what's within us that God put there to cause.

Us to triumph. Y'all didn't hear me.

You could have said, if God gave me a challenge

this great, If God gave me a mountain this big,

if God gave me this situation to overcome, I wonder

what God knows about me that I don't know about me.

My maker is my mirror.

If he put it in front of me, he already

knows how it's.

Gonna fall back off.

Goliath. I gotta rock in a sling shot. My maker

is my mirror. You come against me with sword and shavelin,

but I come against you in the name of the Lord.

But Caleb had a different spirit. Caleb had a different mirror.

I love him.

Because he walks up to Joshua.

He's like, hey, man, remember when we are at the

edge of the promise and the people saw themselves small,

and they held up a mirror for the rest of

the nation, and the nation saw themselves small. By the way,

be very careful who you surround yourself with, because some

people will be little you to the point that you

will start to believe it. But you are not what

they said. And if they are not your maker, they

don't get to be your mirror. I don't care what

they thought, what they suggested, or what their actions.

May be reflecting. As a matter of fact, can I.

Say something, everybody's acceptance is not a blessing.

Because we got some weird mirrors in the world today,

and some of what the world calls normal, some.

Of what people will say, some of what people will

actually give you validation for, will ruin your vision of.

Who you really are.

I love the Bible because here's why Because it's a mirror.

That's what James said. He said in James one twenty three.

This is the New Testament equivalent of Caleb's speech, because

Caleb was looking in a different mirror to see himself,

and James says, the Word of God gives you a

different mirror.

Is different than your experiences.

It's different than your genetics, is different than your tendencies.

It's different than than than your neural patterns. It's different

than all of that. It's different than your height, or

your weight, or your eye color. It's different than anything

you can see. The Word of God is a different mirror.

But here's what we do. We forget what we saw

in the Word, and we look into the world to

reflect back to us what's inside of us. And so

we stay outside of God's promise forfeiting our possession and

our inheritance as the children of God.

Is like if you.

Listen to the Word and don't do what it says,

you're like a man who looks intently at his natural

face in a mirror.

But then you go away and at once forgets what

he was like. And that's what happens when you leave church.

And you have to go into situations that contradict what

your spirit knows. The most important mirror that I look

in does not show me how to fix my hair.

And y'all, I have one cawlic today.

It took me like seven minutes to try to press

it down, and I don't know if it's stayed or

not because I can't see it right now. I thought

this is so appropriate. Here I am seven minutes trying

to get that hair lay down. But yet I'll leave

the house with just any attitude and not check to

see God.

Y'all know I'm right. Y'all know I'm right.

Sometimes you are seeing yourself through someone else's insecurity. How

other people treat you as not necessarily howel how they

feel about you. A lot of times it's how they

feel about them. I'm preaching to the insides today, you know,

because if somebody's making you feel stupid, guess what they feel.

Their rejection is a reflection not of you, of them.

But if you let them hold your mirror, if you

let the giants hold your mirror, if you see yourself

through your enemy's eyes, you'll start to believe that's how

it really is. That's not how it really is. My

maker is my mirror. My maker is my mirror. Everybody's

acceptance is not a blessing, and everybody's rejection is not

a curse. So Caleb's like, hey, Joshua, I know I'm old,

I know I'm saggy.

I know my right knee goes out, But I.

This, This takes faith to see it because at first

I thought he was lying right, But then I studied

the language, and he said twice in verse.

Ten, behold behold. It lets me know that.

Caleb had a different mirror because he's looking at a

natural mirror.

And he's like, dangnyeah, come on, he's eighty five.

There's no way that what he said is true on

a tactical and practical level.

Because he goes up to Joshua. He's like, I still

got it.

Come on, touch somebody, it'll beal fun. Say.

I still got it.

I went through forty five years of wildernes, but the wilderness.

Didn't get in me.

I still got it. I still want what God has

for me. I still got a fighting spirit. In fact,

what I survived didn't make me weaker. It just made

me stronger. It just made me more resolved. I still

got it. I still got hope, I still got a twinkle.

You'll see my eyes. I still got a word. Give

me my mountain. I want to live in that high.

Altitude, and I'm glad that I don't have to look

in the mirror of another person's.

Opinion or in the mirror of a desolate situation. You know,

by this point, Caleb could have been like, I'm such

a failure. I tried to motivate the people to go

in and they did it. He could have spent forty

five years playing that story. But by this point he's

in a different mirror, and he says, my strength has

only gotten greater because of what I went through. I'm

not ashamed of the wilderness. I'm not ashamed of the mistakes.

God said, some of you keep looking into the mirror

of your mistakes, and you keep reflecting your future back

to yourself in through the reflection of your mistakes.

But if there's one thing you notice.

About a mirror, it always shows you the image backward.

That's why God knows the end from the beginning. So

God doesn't see your life like you see your life.

He sees it in reverse, and he already sees you free.

So He says that you're free because he sees that

you're free even when you don't feel free.

It's a word, it's a word. This is a mirror.

This is a mirror for you to look into today

and yourself as the image of God. Behold, I still

got strength that you can't see.

Hey, thank you for watching.

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