Live Free with Josh Howerton - Seeing Yourself Through God's Eyes | Ep. 91 | Monday June 12, 2023

Episode Date: June 12, 2023

In today’s episode, Pastor Mike discusses how people can lose their true identity. The lies we believe about ourselves distort the truth of whom God says we are. Let's expose the lies that can hack into our souls and learn to see how God sees us. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, welcome to the Daily Drive, wherever you are, and whatever you're doing. Thanks for joining us. Man, I absolutely love summer, and I hope that you get to take some time to make some memories this summer.

We're getting ready to take our annual family vacation where 34 of us get together under one roof for a week. We're heading to a beach house in North Carolina with 15 adults and 19 kids. It is such chaotic fun, where we make a whole bunch of memories. I'm pretty much the grocery runner and the grill master for the entire weekend. We all can't wait for that to happen. So I hope that you get some kind of break this summer where you can relax and recharge and make some memories as well, especially you students, because school will be back before you know it. You know, as a student, I always hate it the very first day of school, not because it announced the end of summer break in the beginning of a year-long diet of cafeteria soybean burgers,

It's not because I had a fear of big yellow buses or taking a shower in gym class. I hated it because of my name. Anybody else have a name that just got killed during the first day roll call? Now, my name is spelled B-R-E-A-U-X. And as any good Cajun would know, it is pronounced bro, like B-R-O. Well, my parents named me Mike, and everybody calls me Mike. I always have. but it's actually an abbreviated version of my middle name, Michael.

My first name is actually Jerry. So on opening day, in every class from kindergarten through grad school, when they would call the roll, it was Jerry Breox, and I would raise my hand and say, Mike, bro. They said, no, wait your turn. We're looking for Jerry Breaks. I mean, it just drove me crazy. He went on for 17 years of school and still happens to me every time I give me name

for a table at a restaurant. You know, Break's party of four. It's a good thing I know who I am. Well, this summer, I'm talking a lot on weekends about identity theft, talking about being hacked. So I thought we would dive a little deeper into that each day on the Daily Drive podcast because way too many people don't really know who they are. Oh, they got a first and a last name, perhaps the title, a Social Security number, their TSA, real ID, or passport.

but they're pretty clueless as to their true identity. You know, recent stats show that last year in our country, there were 16.7 million victims of identity theft. The amount stolen hit $16.8 billion last year's. 30% of U.S. consumers were notified for a database exposure. For the first time, more Social Security numbers were exposed than credit card numbers. I had a credit card notification recently that someone tried to use my credit card number. and I got hacked on social media.

Anybody else been hacked? Anybody else had their identities stolen in some way? Well, from my vantage point, it seems like identity theft is really not all that new. It's been going on a long, long time, and it strikes where it really matters. So I thought we would just look at some things that can hack into our soul and steal our true identity. It can be stolen by success. It could be plundered by the past. It could be mugged by the mere ripped off a resentment, hijacked by hate, swindled by suburbia, seized by social media.

But I'd like to kick all this off talking about how our identity can be robbed by relationships. You see, the main strategy of our enemy, and yes, he is real, is to use lies that hack into our soul. In fact, Jesus called him the father of lies. And throughout our time together, we're going to try to expose some of those lies that really end up messing with our true identity. Lies such as I am what I feel. I am what I have. I am what people say about me. I am what I do and how well I do it. I am what I have done. And our goal for our time together is to expose these lies and hopefully enable all of us to tell ourselves the truth and then begin to see ourselves through God's eyes. And my prayer is that you would let the truth of his love define who you are. So let me

just give you a little obscure verse today that has profoundly changed the way I see myself. It's found in John chapter 21 verse 20 and it says this. Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them.

And now you're thinking, yeah, that's really profound, bro. Here's why it is. Does anybody know who was the disciple whom Jesus loved? Yeah, it was a guy named John. You anybody know who wrote John 21-20?

Yeah, it was John. And I just love this because that's how he referred to himself. He didn't say John, the associate pastor of Jesus, John, the small group leader of Jesus, small group. He said, no, you know what, I'm just a guy that Jesus loves. That's how he defined himself. And you know what, you are a much-loved man, and you are a much-loved woman, and I'm praying that you would let that define you today. That's what Jerry Breyox is going to do.

And we're going to unpack this all summer long, and I'll see you tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out? For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point,

visit lake point.compt.com. Church slash daily drive.