*I had the opportunity to give this message to 15-20 women this morning who are currently prostitutes in San José. My team is working with an organization in downtown San José who work with prostitutes to show them love and to give them a safe place to be. Then, on Tuesday and Friday nights, we go out past dark into downtown San José to pray over people in the area. Many locals have told us how dangerous the area we are working in is, but my team is excited to see all God will do to bring His light and authority to this neighborhood through us. Here’s my message:
For most of my life, I have been labeled as the shy girl. Starting at a young age, I took that label and starting changing the way I lived because I thought that was what everyone saw me as. I took a label I didn’t have to take because I thought it was something I was given. I got myself into a deep hole with this label. I went deeper and deeper into shyness and begun to forget who I actually was. I had many different sides of myself to fit each and every group of people I was with. It was very tiring for me and never satisfied. All I wanted was to be myself but I was deep into years worth of being something or someone I wasn’t created to be. I was fabricating something that God made so perfectly to work a certain way because of what people said of me. It was frustrating because I thought I couldn’t change and so I kept going back to that label. I think everyone in this world has a label that they’ve been holding onto for awhile and are just unsure of how to let go of it and throw it away for good. It always seems to creep back up on them. For me, that was shyness. Every time I tried to step out, something would happen and I’d just go back to the label I thought I knew.
Over the years, God has kept inviting me into full freedom from fear of man and of my label of shyness and I have wanted to, but haven’t known how to. In high school, I was freed a little from my shyness to be closer to who God has called me to be, however, I still find myself withholding my opinions and not being completely myself with people who I don’t know that well. I have been told that I am a little intimidating because of how quiet I am. People have been scared to come and talk to me because I don’t step out and talk to people who I don’t know that well. I have been continuously working towards throwing the label away and have noticed that I don’t make any progress if I am not in-tune with God who knows who I actually am and who can help me reprogram my wrong thinking. I want to work towards what is right, but I fail when I do it all on my own. Romans 7:14-25 (want to do good but another law waging war with God’s will). God has every power to help us to actually do good and to demolish the law waging war inside of us. With every wrong label we place on ourself, God wants to rip those labels off and burn then. He sees us as His beautiful daughters and doesn’t like to see us acting any less than a royal heir, crowned and chosen by the high priest. With the label I often put on myself, I ignore my worth in my Heavenly Father and question everything He’s made me to be to please mere man.
Through my process of understanding the true label that I have been given from birth, God has begun to show me a beautiful picture of the crowned princess that I am. I am an heir to the throne, I have a Father who is King of kings and Lord of lords. God hates seeing me put myself down and take off my crown to allow the world to speak into my character. When the world tells me I am shy and unheard, God keeps reminding me to hold my head high and to remember that I’m His; I’m His beloved daughter, chosen from birth to be His and only His. My true label is PRINCESS, BELOVED, CHOSEN, DAUGHTER, and so many more. I have begun to recognize when I’ve put a false label on myself because I can tell when it doesn’t line up with being a chosen daughter of royal priesthood. A chosen daughter doesn’t question her worth, she knows it. God wants us to know our worth in Him so that He can use us completely to help free other women who are putting false labels on themselves.
As sad as it is, I had to hear my worth from other people before I could believe it from my own Heavenly Father. God always makes sure I know my worth and He will find any way that I’ll listen to tell me my worth. Right now, I want to tell each of you women that you are beautiful and chosen. God isn’t done reshaping your life and He has every desire to rip off false labels and replace them with the words “CHOSEN,” “MY DAUGHTER,” “BELOVED,” and “ROYAL PRINCESS.” Whatever label you are placing on yourself right now that is causing you to doubt your worth, God wants to rip that off. It took me a long time to realize that I needed to truly understand my Father before I could understand my worth in Him. Everyday, I am still working towards becoming fully believing of my royal calling to be a princess of the Most High King. I still question my worth and I still spend too much time trying to please people in the world rather than God.
I have a few verses we can look back on when remembering that we are chosen daughters and beloved heirs. These verses will truly help us to remember who’s we are. We do not belong to this world; this world doesn’t need to have a single say in our identity. God has already labeled us and we need to stop putting the false labels on top of the labels that declare us worthy. We need to stop hiding our beautiful worth in Jesus Christ and start declaring daily over ourselves that we are beloved and that we have a heavenly purpose. I would love it if we each took a verse to write down and then put them on the wall somewhere in this building. When you walk in this building, I pray so boldly that you know your worth. I pray so boldly that any label that someone out in the world gave you just falls off at the door. You don’t need to pick it back up when you leave this space. You can have freedom today; God desires to work on your spirit from the inside-out. You are a beautiful daughter with such a big calling on your life. I pray that you all are going to free women who are going through the same things because you have received freedom from it yourself. Yes, it is a process to seek healing from something you’ve been labeled for awhile, but it is possible because God can raise the dead to life. If God can raise the dead to life, He can rip off labels that have been stuck on us for a long time. No one is seen as a lost cause for God. He makes broken things beautiful and He cannot wait to see the day when all of His children truly understand their worth in Him.
Now, we are going to write the verses. I will read them in English and you can write them in Spanish to put on the walls. After we write these verses, I would love to have a time of prayer for the labels that we can seem to rip off. When we pray, we will speak these bible verses out loud over ourselves and will pray off the false labels. We’re never too far gone for God Almighty. God has all of the power to shift the way we see ourselves and how we live. However, in order for that beautiful transformation to start its work, we need to be willing to put in work. We need to be willing to wake up every morning and push ourselves closer and closer to God. He has the answers we all need. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
PLAY SPANISH WORSHIP MUSIC WHILE WE WRITE THESE VERSES!! (SPEAKER)
“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.”
??Ephesians? ?1:4-6? ?NIV??
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
Jeremiah 1:5 ESV
“The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.”
Romans 8:16-17 ESV
“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ And in the very place where it was said to them, “You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
Romans 9:25-26 ESV
“You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.”
1 Corinthians 7:23 ESV
“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
??Galatians? ?1:10? ?NIV??
“‘I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord. ‘Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.’”
Jeremiah 29:11 ESV
“He made us, and we are His. We are His people, the sheep of His pasture.”
Psalm 100:3
“Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are Mine. When you go through deep waters, I will be with you.”
Isaiah 43:1-2
“Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ Or ‘Your work has no handles?’”
Isaiah 45:9b
“You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her.”
Isaiah 62:3-4a
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Psalm 139:13-14
“And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God!”
Galatians 4:6-7
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to anyone of slavery.”
Galatians 5:1
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Ephesians 2:10
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.”
Ephesians 2:19
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
1 Peter 2: 9-10
“I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.”
Revelation 3:11
