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You're listening to the My Morning Devotional Podcast, episode 1469. Today's devo is called, "Loving Yourself.". Hey there! We're the Alessis, a ministry family working together in our church in Miami, Florida. And if you're like us, when days get busy and to-do lists get longer, it can be hard to find devotional time.
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That's why we've partnered with our friend Allison to produce a 5-minute daily dose of heaven. This is the My Morning Devotional Podcast. Hello everyone, my name is Lauren Alessi and I am your host for this week. Today we're talking about loving yourself, but more than this, we're talking about finding our confidence in Christ. And I wasn't originally going to go with this theme, but as I was praying out yesterday's devo, uh, and I started talking about finding love for yourself, I realized how much that is needed, and I wanted to change today's topic and devo to that specifically. So let's just jump right in. Psalm 139:14, it says this I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it very well. I wanted to talk on this today because as I was thinking about love, love is blind, and I know this podcast specifically for this month, and a lot of churches, a lot of other podcasts, and pastors, they dedicate the month of February to talking about love and dating and marriage. And I think it's so needed, and I think it's great.
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But for some of us, talking about loving others and talking about relationships can be very hard when we haven't learned to truly love ourselves. And I could speak for myself, getting in a relationship really brought out a lot of insecurities in myself. That I thought I was the most confident person on the planet. And then I got in a relationship and I realized how much of myself I needed to work on.
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And I think that's a total normal part of life. I think that's in some way good and healthy to realize that, okay, we have insecurities and we need to work through them. And I think what the Bible tells us, because although we can have insecurities and that's part of being human, What's good to recognize is that God's not expecting us to be at a point where we're like, well, I just love everything about myself and I'm perfect. I love the way that I look.
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I love the way that I dress. I love the way that I act. I'm just perfection. Because that's not godly anyways. What God wants us to do when we look at ourselves, when we look at our families, when we look at where we come from, we simply just say, I praise you, Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Who you made me to be, Lord, I, I love who you made me to be. Wonderful are your works, Lord. You made the sun, the moon, and the stars. They are a beautiful creation, Lord. And you know, I'm a part of your creation too, God.
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Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well too.
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This is such a beautiful add-on because the soul is in the, like, the deepest part of you. So for your soul to be on the same page as my soul knows it very well That, Lord, wonderful are your works. And Lord, I just submit to your creation and that I'm a part of your creation and wonderful is your creation. That's where I strive to be. We're human and it's normal to want to sort of pinpoint and want to dissect and be like, oh, my skin's breaking out today. That was me like literally this morning. It's like, why do I get this acne all the time? I'm in my late 20s. Why am I still getting acne? Is that part of it and normal? Yes.
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But is it ungodly to start to let that acne define who I am in God's creation? Yes. That's where it's got to stop. So loving yourself in Christ isn't speaking mantras over yourself that I'm beautiful and I'm confident and I'm this. No, that's not godly. What is godly is saying, I praise you, Lord.
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Lord, I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, and wonderful are your works.
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My soul knows it very well. And it's not speaking mantras over yourself. It's speaking the word of God over yourself.
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Because that's what we are. We are God's creation. When I think of this story, I think of my niece Gianna, who's Stephanie's daughter. And she's— I don't even know if she's 4 years old.
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I honestly, I don't think so. I have no idea. But she's very smart.
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And she hates when her hair is up in a ponytail. Because she doesn't like hair out of her face. She likes the way it looks down, but her hair looks so gorgeous when it's out of her face. She looks beautiful, and she is not even 4, and she has already developed this huge insecurity of wanting her hair— I don't want to say huge insecurity. She's too little.
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No, let me not say that. She's already developed this consciousness. Let me say that because she's way too little. She's already developed this consciousness of the way she likes to look and the way she doesn't like to look. And I, when I see that, I'm reminded of how I was as a little girl. And that's why I called it an insecurity, because I'm, I'm projecting. Forgive me. But when I was a little girl, I was very conscious and insecure of my hair being up. I liked my hair being down for it to cover my face, which is a very normal kid thing. Absolutely, completely normal. But what that shows me is how young it starts. Like when we're 2, 3, 4 years old, we're very conscious of the way we look, of the way we like to look, of even the way we act. If we say something and people react bad, oh, should I change that about my personality? Should I change that about my, my sense of humor? Should I change the way I am now so that I can appease my friends? And maybe you're listening to this with your mom in the car with your dad in the car and you're on your way to school, and, and you're a young girl or you're a young boy, and you're at a very formative time in your life where you're aware of all these things— the way you look, the way you act— let me just encourage yourself right now. That's a very normal part of life. But also understand that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
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You are not made by your friends. You're not just made by your parents.
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You're made by God himself, by the Lord himself. He destined for you to be created. He handpicked you to be made, and you have a great purpose in your life in the future. So don't forget that, and make sure that your soul knows it very well. So I just wanted to talk about loving yourself today and being confident in Christ before we keep talking about loving others, because I think that is very important.
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Let us pray. Dear God, we thank you so much for the opportunity to come before you. And Lord, we thank you that you recognize recognize that we are human.
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And Lord, we have flaws, God. We have days where we're not feeling the best about ourselves, God. And that's a part of being human, Lord. And Lord, I just pray right now, let us submit our flaws to you. Let us submit our insecurities to you, God. And let us ultimately just understand and totally come into submission, Lord, that we are your creation.
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In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So there you have it, your 5-minute daily dose of heaven. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We pray these devotionals empower you to take on your day. If you found value in this devotional, share it with a friend, leave a comment or review for us on the app you're using right now.
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Until tomorrow, we pray that your latte is strong, but your love for Jesus is stronger.
