The True Self School Podcast Michelle Gathren

BODY



Day 2 - Psalms 139:14



The Bible translations that I want to review today are the new King James Contemporary English version and the new living.



New King James says, I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well.



The CV says, I praise you because of the wonderful way you created me. Everything you do is marvelous. Of this, I have no doubt.



The New Living translation says, Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex. Your workmanship is marvelous. How well I know it.



What's interesting about this scripture are the three words that I want to highlight.



Fearfully.



Reverence -



High esteem - to admire with pride, to have joy and wonder and delight to approve.

High regard - to consider or think of someone or something in a specific way.

Great respect - a deep feeling of admiration of someone elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.











God says you're fearfully and wonderfully made. Now this word wonderfully means



Wonderfully



Distinct - Recognizably different.

Separated - viewed as a unit by yourself, masterpiece, work of art.

Distinguished - An observable difference, respected, impressive.





Marvelous



Extraordinary - very unusual, exceptional, amazing, astounding.

Surpassing - incomparable, outstanding

Wondrous - inspiring a feeling of wonder or delight.







So you're exceptional, you're amazing, you're outstanding, you're inspiring, delight in wonder.



You're recognizably different. You're viewed as a masterpiece of work of art. There's an observable difference about you that's respected. People admire you, they have joy and wonder, and they take delight in you. And they have great respect for you, which is a deep appreciation.



So how can you not have confidence?



How is it that you not say to yourself that you're wonderful, that you're created this way on purpose, that the hard work and skill and equality to God used to create you makes you extraordinary?



That you were created with admiration and pride and joy and approval simply stated that you're enough. That you are fearfully and wonderfully made; that you're impressive. Your abilities and qualities, and achievements are built into your DNA.



How could you not have self-confidence when you understand what the word of God says about you? He says that you're fearfully and wonderfully made.



You were created with a wonderful purpose; you are extraordinary; The hard work and great skill, quality, and materials used to create you.



You are enough. You are designed with appreciation, joy, and approval.



You're fearfully and wonderfully made. Again, I say God made a marvelous work with you. And you have impressive abilities, qualities, and achievements built into your DNA.



Finally, you're fearfully and wonderfully made approved of distinguished and exceptional.



Let's end here with a prayer.



Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank you. Praise you for fearfully and wonderfully making me everything you do is marvelous of this. I have no doubt.



God, I choose to believe your word about who I am. I walk in your confidence that you built in me. Every day, I will remind myself of where I come from and who I am, and what I'm capable of. I'm more than enough. I'm more than a conqueror. I can do everything that I was created to do.



And as always, you give me exceedingly abundantly above all, I ask, or think, according to the power that's active in me. So, Lord,

Day One – Philippians 4:13

New King James' translation says. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.



The Amplified translation says. I can do all things which he has called me to do through him who strengthens and empowers me. Fulfill his purpose. I'm self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency. I'm ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace.



Now the NIV, which is the New International Version, says. I can do all of this through him who gives me strength.



I read different translations so that I can get a fuller understanding of what the scripture means. After I do that I sit there and I meditate and I ponder what I read. And then I come up with. I called Michelle's translation.

Michelle’s Translations:

So here are some translations from me.



I'm ready for anything and equal to anything.

I have the ability, the strength, and the power for all things I'm self-sufficient in Christ sufficiency. I can do this.

I have everything I need to successfully get it done.



Now when you're doing a devotional, it's really important. At least I think it's very important. It's been very beneficial for me.  To not only meditate on the Word, but actually go in and study that word to get in there and find out what those individual words mean. When you have a full understanding of each word that jumps out to you.  It makes the scripture come alive to you.



So in that Scripture can do means to be strong in your body for you to have strong health. It means to have power exerting and wielding power and having the strength to overcome. To be able to have the power and the skill, the opportunity to do something.



When he says all things, it means whatever. Now the interesting thing about the word, whatever is that it's called a pronoun determinator. What that means is that it's used to emphasize no restriction.



So whatever all things it means, thoroughly complete with every detail. Every includes all things. Everything means there's nothing that's left out of it.



And then we have Christ. Which we know is Christos. In Greek, it's Jesus Christ, our Messiah, the son of God, the anointed one. In his anointing. He himself strengthen. Means to empower and to give me authority and power and confidence to do something.



So I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me means I can do everything in my body. I have strong health to do it. I can exert and wield energy. I have the strength to overcome. I have the power and skill and ability to do something. Whatever it is because there is no restriction.  I can thoroughly complete it with every detail intact. All things I can do because Christ the anointed one, has empowered me. He's given me the authority, the power, and the confidence to do this.



So let's take a moment now and do a meditation.

MEDITATION

So after I have read the scripture and then I've gone through each translation. And then I've created my own translation. And then. I have studied the Scriptures so I got a fuller understanding of each individual word. It is now time for you to meditate.



And some of the new thoughts that I would encourage you to meditate on are as follows.



I can do whatever I need to do. I can do hard, complicated, disciplined work to get what I need and want.

I am furnished with the necessary powers of administration.

I am provided with everything needed to accomplish/execute and rule.

I have everything I need to accomplish/achieve and rule.

I already have everything I need to achieve excellence.

I can do this; I have everything I need to successfully get it done.



PRAYER

Father, in the Name of Jesus.

You know you hear a lot about self-confidence, and we talk a lot about it here because that's a buzzword that people think that's the catchall for, you know, feeling good about who you are.



But when I was studying self-confidence in the Bible, I kept coming back to love, and in the New Testament, there are two primary commandments; the 1st is about loving God with your mind, your body, and your soul, and in the other one. It is to love others as much as you love yourself, and a lot of times, we talk about loving other people, but we don't.



Get down to the nitty-gritty or what I think is the nitty-gritty of that commandment that God talks to us about. He says that we have to love others as much as we love ourselves.



And so, a lot of times, it's in the church community or even in the world. It's like, well, you know, if you love yourself that you or arrogant, or you're selfish, or you know you shouldn't be that way. That's not the proper way to be. You get a lot of shame from it, and there is balance. Don't get me wrong; we can get too far into just putting our needs above everything else and not considering anybody else and not coming to an understanding of that when you have.



Ship with other people. There are certain things that there's a given a take, but primarily if you're not taking care of yourself.



You are not taking great care of other people, regardless of if you're selfless or not.



And so I want to talk about that right now talking about, you know, treating people.



Typically we treat people that we supposedly don't care for and that aren't our family, friends, or loved ones better than we treat our loved ones. That's an interesting concept because excellence is supposed to come from the inside out and those that are closer in your circle.



Should get the majority of the love the most significant benefit of the love and from them getting the greater benefit of your love. They're able to utilize that love and.



Give out more love to their circle, so it's kind of like an explosion is a blast radius. You know those that are closer to where the bomb was detonated. There's most of where the damage is, and in this situation, they'll be most of where the love, compassion, understanding, and care should be. Many times that's not the case. We give so much outside of our family outside of ourselves outside of our inner circles to people that are around us.



Yes, when we come home, when we are finished with our day's work, we are so exhausted, and we don't have anything to give to those people or children or family or loved ones or friends. And most importantly to ourselves, because we can't continue to give out to other people if we are empty. If our needs are not met. If we don't know who we are or haven't done the things that we need to do for ourselves, giving out to other people is basically.



Vein, as far as I'm concerned, it's fake. It's like this thing that I found out about, like McDonald's, that the cup sizes are all exactly the same. It's not real; it's an illusion. You know you're not really giving the best part of yourself. You're not utilizing the best part of yourself because you are empty.



And so.



The first person that you're supposed to love outside of God is you.



You know we're taught. As I said, we're taught that loving other people you know is really important, and it is. I'm not saying that it's not.



But we're really not taught about self-love because if we have an awareness and an understanding about loving ourselves.



Then they'll be disciplined. They'll be happy. They'll be goal attainment. They'll be rest and relaxation.



You know there'll be so many things because we know that we have to take care of ourselves, start to enjoy,

Have you ever wanted something and did everything you knew to get, achieve, or receive it. You decided to get it, researched precisely what you wanted, and knew everything there was to know about what you wanted. You were now an expert on your desire. You cut pictures out of magazines, searched for photos on the internet, bookmarked all the best sites, and made a vision board. You looked at that vision board every day and got excited when you saw the pictures of your desire. You thought about it constantly, whenever you got a spare moment. While you stopped at a red light waiting for it to turn green, you saw yourself with your desire. You talked about your desire to other people so much that they got tired of listening to you.



As the days and weeks started to pass, your enthusiasm started to wane, and you thought about your desire less and less. You walked past your vision board as if it was part of the painted wall, no longer seeing your desire the way you had seen it initially.



It now seems like a daydream, something you did to pass the time one day when you were bored.



No, it wasn’t a daydream, it was indeed something that you wanted, but you didn’t realize that you had to receive the desire before it manifested in physical form. There are four primary elements to belief, and receiving it is an important one. When you believe something, you have to:



Accept it – believe its existence, say yes to it, welcome it into your life

Consent to it – give it permission to happen, it doesn’t just arrive – you have to create it

Form an impression in your mind of what you are receiving – you have to see to receive it

Serve as a receptacle for your desire. You plant the belief for your desire in your soul

Provide space for it, make room for your desire – literally and figuratively

Detect it or pick it up like a broadcast signal. Whatever you focus on, you attract



Too many times, we give up on what we said we wanted.

We put in hours of prep work, and as soon as we don’t immediately see the manifestation of what we want, we get discouraged and quit. That discouragement or lack of enthusiasm can take on many forms like:



Anger – which is a secondary emotion, and masking the real feeling you don’t want to deal with

Disappointment - which is sadness caused by the unfulfillment



Then we stop and usually quit.



Now filled with regret and a limiting belief that may sound something like:



“What’s the point in trying? I’m not:



Smart enough

Pretty enough

Old Enough

Young Enough

Rich enough

Popular enough

Tall enough

Small enough







Any Enough will do



Then we rationalize



It’s not for me

God didn’t want that for me

When one door shuts, another door opens

“People” are always trying to keep me down







The truth is none of those things was the issue.



They were just roadblocks, obstacles, situations that stood in between you and what you said you wanted.



When you believe something, you know that it doesn’t just walk in the door until you have manifested it. If you’ve just started believing, then it’s like the muscles in your body. You have to exercise them so that they get stronger and can handle the weight. You also need to stretch them to keep them flexible and healthy to maintain a range of motion in your joints.



The receiving part of your belief works the same way. Your belief is flexible, healthy, and has a solid range of motion to handle the weight of receiving your desire.



Pick up from where you stopped believing; you don’t have to start over. Go back to your vision board,

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, and she's pretty successful in her industry, and she was telling me about a project that she's working on.



While describing the project, there was passion in her voice - she was angry. At the same time, she was processing her feelings from the client's experiences. And there was this compassionate empathy, this visceral anger that was coming up from inside of her. And you know she was talking about how people don't have access to certain information and the choices they make as a result.



And as I was listening to her.



I was thinking about my own life and the lives of other people.



And just my observations of things that I had seen, and I would come back in and listen to words as she was saying, and it was all boiling down to choices.



And a lot of people say if you know better, you do better. Well, that's not necessarily true because we can have a tremendous amount of information, but we don't do anything with it. We can. We can spout it out; we can recite it. We can verbalize it back to other people. We can give them advice from that information that we've provided, and it can help them because they go and put it into action. But if we're not utilizing that information, it's just information.



And what I was realizing was that we don't realize that we have choices many times, and that can be in any area of your life that could be purchasing a home—having a better relationship.



Living in a different environment, living in a foreign country, starting a business. Going to school, not going to school. Choosing who you want to love.



Depending upon the environment that you're in and how your mind processes information, and their previous experiences that you've been a part of, you don't sometimes realize that you have a choice. You know you see women that were battered and abused, and people say, well, you know why stay in that relationship. Sometimes people don't realize they have a choice.



And then when you realize you have a choice, or you get that epiphany or that IHOP moment.



Then something else comes in and is like, well, what do I choose? And there's so much that's available in this world today. Suppose you're not accustomed to making choices for yourself. If that's not something that you've done before, you've always done with other people wanted you to do. You've never taken the time to sit out and think about what it is that you want. Think about who you are. Think about where you want your life to go. Then you have no idea, no concept that you can make a choice. And what are your available options?



A lot of times, we choose from the lesser of two evils.



But guess what, you don't have to choose from a list of two evils if you have choice A and choice B. Guess what? You can create a choice C, Or you can select neither of them.



But many times, we don't realize that we have those options available to us and then the other thing you could live in a community. Let's use housing as an example. You can live in a society where there are homes, and other people live in homes, and it never crossed your mind that a home is available to you.



And then if when you purchase a home, what community do you want to live in? Do I have to live around the people that I grew up around? Can I move to another state? Is it OK for me to live in a specific community? Do I have to live in this country, you know? And so, there are so many other things that go along with making choices. But the primary thing that she and I were talking about was.



Many people don't realize that they have the ability or the option to choose.



I know for myself I didn't have.



The understanding that I had a choice. I grew up in a family where I didn't choose what I ate.

Have you ever considered loving yourself unconditionally? No strings attached. Getting up each day, happy about who you are, and looking forward to what the day would unfold? Have you taken the time to think about who you want to be, where you want to go, and write down your ideal-self characteristics, values, and morals and looking into the future of the happiness, peace, prosperity, and accomplishment that you have and achieve?



The best way to do that is to start with spending time with God. Get to know Him and who He is. When you see God, you will see who you were created to be—made in His image and likeness.



Take time each day to connect with God, letting Him know He is your priority. Spend time in His presence, developing a solid relationship with Him.



Learning and depending on His:



Character

Power,

Grace,

Wisdom,

Love,

Compassion



Simply spending time in His presence, not asking for anything other than spending time with Him.



I won’t keep you long today because I’d like for you to take a few moments and pull aside and focus on God.



Make Him your priority.



Get rid of all distractions. Mute your phone and lay it face down. Turn off the television. Find a quiet place and pull aside.



Tell God how much you love Him and how you can’t live without Him.



Tell Him what He means to you.



Remind Him how He Makes you feel.



Make it clear to God that you can’t live without Him. Bask in the love and intense emotions and feelings that spring up inside you that you can’t explain, and their intensity catches you off guard.



I Challenge you to Love on God.



His nature is so kind and wonderful that before you can finish telling Him how you feel and what you think, He will overwhelm you with the love and feelings that He has for you.



I’ve tried to outlove God several times. And have been reduced to a pile of joyous tears and unspeakable happiness.



God is Amazing.



I’m tearing up now, just thinking about His love.



CONCLUSION



I challenge you to start with one minute – 60 seconds.



Start telling God how much you love Him and what He means to you and watch Him overtake you with His love.

Psalm 22:3 says, “God inhabits the praises of His people.”

Be prepared to be overwhelmed!