I want to encourage you today that you never need to mess with comparing yourself with anyone else… ever again!

Colossians 2:6-10 (NLT)

Freedom from Rules and New Life in Christ

6 And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow Him. 7 Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.

8 Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. 9For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. 10 So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

On my journey over the past couple of years of finding out what God is really like and continuing to learn about His amazing grace, one of the things that has benefitted me the most is learning that my true identity rests in Christ rather than in what I accomplish or fail to accomplish.

This was such great news for me and I’m sure I will never get over what knowing this has meant to me. I used to have a pride problem every time I did something right or felt I accomplished something and a guilt problem that led to a failure identity every time I did something wrong or I failed to accomplish something.

Now, whether I do it right or I do it wrong, either way I’m still in Christ and I’m really getting an understanding that I can do nothing truly good or successful apart from Jesus! This revelation has made me a very stable and solid person and I really have a desire to see others enjoy this stability and peace as well!

You see these boxes. Well, I workout at CrossFit, which is an extremely challenging workout. I have always loved a challenge so when I finally started this new workout program back in July, there was no going back.

Box jumps are one of my favorite things to do at CrossFit and I started out jumping on one 15 pound flat weight plate (not pictured here), then I worked my way up to the small box on the right (which they call the sugar cube – 12 inches) and then about 2 months ago I did my first successful jump on the next box up, which is 20 inches. In case your tempted to be impressed, don’t be. There are people there who can jump 50 inches and make it look easy. Can’t imagine how they do it, but it’s fun to watch them conquer.

I am so enjoying working out at CrossFit, more than any other exercise program in my past because God’s grace has worked such a change in me that I no longer feel the need to compare myself to anyone else. This totally frees me up to conquer my own goals that I make for myself each workout. I make at least one goal of something I want to challenge myself with and every workout I can say that I do make some sort of improvement in strength or speed… or on a really good day, both.

But I have been doing CrossFit for 9 months now and many times I am still the last one to get finished with my WOD (workout of the day) or the one with the slowest time in the class. Take yesterday for instance. First there was a grueling warm up, followed by the strength portion of the workout where we practiced our bench press, followed by the following WOD:

5 Rounds of:

200 Meter Run (1000 meters total)
15 box Jumps (75 total)
10 dumbbell push press (50 total)

CrossFit always has an RX version of the WOD and a Scaled version. I have never done an RX workout, but it has been my long term goal to do this some day. When I saw the WOD on the board yesterday I thought, “Wow, could it be? Maybe I could try to do my first RX workout.”

The RX dumbbell amount for women was 35 pounds. I went over and picked up two 35 pound dumbbells and pretty much couldn’t budge them. I guess it’s progress that I could even pick them up, but my dream of doing an RX workout was out the window for now.

“No problem,” I thought. “What goals do I want to set for myself?” So I decided to have two goals. To do all five 200 meter runs without walking and to jump on the 20 inch box all 5 rounds (75 jumps) instead of only stepping up and down, on and off the box, which was the easiest option. The third and most advanced option was to jump completely over the box. Yeah, right. Not happening…yet. But someday I will!

Now, I have to tell you that in CrossFit, by the time you get to the last 10-20 minutes of class, which is when the WOD (workout of the day) takes place, you are already feeling pretty worn out. So you have to resist fear, dig deep, and in my case, since I’m a Christian, pray “God please help me” a lot to get through. But it is exhilarating to know you got through it, once you finish and I am always so thankful for God’s strength! Yes, I fully believe God cares about my workout because He cares about everything that concerns us!

I don’t do weekend classes a lot so at one point I was introducing myself to all the ladies.I will have you know that there was a lady there who had just finished her intro classes recently and had only been doing the regular CrossFit classes for a couple of weeks and she finished way before me.

In fact, CrossFit clients are sort of like a team or a family and they always stay and cheer on the person/people who finish last. From the most elite athletes to the least elite, it doesn’t matter. Come one, come all! Well let’s just say during the last 1.5 rounds of yesterdays WOD I had a large cheering section because everyone else was already done.

I did actually meet my two goals. I didn’t stop running and I jumped on that 20 inch box all 75 times, but what I was most happy about was the fact that I felt totally confident throughout the entire workout even though it was clear that everyone else was working circles around me.

I was even cheering on those ahead of me as we passed each other up on our 5 rounds of 200 meter runs. I felt completely confident in my identity in Christ. You see, not having to compare myself to others totally freed me up to walk in love with them by supporting them. I was truly happy for all of them that they did so well! That, my friend, is the transforming power of God’s grace in a person’s life and it is available to anyone who will believe!

All those years I felt so anxious and frustrated and now I get to live so relaxed and peaceful on the inside, in spite of what is going on in my outward circumstances. I have such a strong desire to see every other Christian on the planet get closely acquainted with who they are in Christ so they can also live in God’s promise land of rest.

I know many Christians already live there and I know many don’t, but all can.

Regardless of if we have experienced this life of rest or not, I don’t think we should ever stop reading and studying in God’s Word about who we are in Christ….so… here are some links to some sites that you can use to read, study and remind yourself again about this wonderful life that Jesus died to provide for you.

If you get rooted and grounded in the scriptures on these links and even additional links that you find, I guarantee you won’t regret it.

All the years that I wasn’t living in God’s rest, I could have been, because I was already all the things these Bible verses talk about in Christ, but it didn’t do me any good because I didn’t have a revelation of my secure identity in Him. I spent so much of my time trying to live a life that Jesus had already come and lived for me and all I needed to do was realize who I was and begin to place my faith in the One who already lived in me and start letting Him live through me!

Knowing that I can continue to grow in the revelation knowledge of who I am in Christ on a daily basis is so exciting to me because as much as learning this has helped me already, I can’t even imagine how wonderful it will be as I continue on this journey!

Please join me. You’ll be so glad you did!

Joyce Meyer Ministries website link – Knowing Who I Am In Christ

Open Bible – 100 Bible verses about Who We Are In Christ

If you have not yet made Jesus your Savior and received the wonderful joy that His finished work on the cross has provided for you to live in, please visit my page here titled Jesus In The Driver’s Seat. On this page I explain the good news of the gospel and you will have the opportunity to pray a prayer of salvation, making Jesus your Savior! Jesus loves you and His arms are wide open!

Sandra McCollom

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