Day 194 - Like

Thoughts that have come from various quotes taken from the book, "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim Based Society" by John H. Hovis. Click here to link directly to the audio file.

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"1 Peter 5:8 doesn’t say Satan IS a lion, it says he is LIKE a lion. Satan is LIKE a roaring lion. Jesus IS THE LION!"

As quoted from the book "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim-Based Society" by John H. Hovis Page 150.

Here's what our Bible reading says today.

Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. 1 Peter 5:8 (MSG)

It is when I try to be LIKE something that I bring trouble in my life. I have let my identity crisis be so complete in my life that I have looked to other people as example of what I am to be like. Don't get me wrong, it isn't incorrect to let the lives of others be motivation for my actions. It is when I want my identity to be like others when trouble begins.

Same went for our enemy, the devil. Satan wanted to be like God. There was something so broken in His own amazing, God-give identity that He took steps that are impacting our lives to this day. Satan's drive to be LIKE made it possible for us all to find identity something that we come to question from time to time.

It isn't that Satan was some slouch in heaven. That just isn't the case. He was described as the Angel of Light. His beauty and radiance was only eclipsed by God Himself. Yet, as so often is the case when we have so much, it wasn't enough for Satan. Comparison to God made it so easy to overlook the amazing identity God had given Satan and jealousy drove him to take a stand that the world has yet to recover from.

Trying to be LIKE something other than what we are is such a victim driven and victim making process. It is when we reject the identity God has given us and work for all we are worth to pursue an identity LIKE someone else that we end up hurting ourselves and those around us. What is worse is when we try to get others to believe that we are LIKE something that we are not, we end up doing and saying things that make victims of those all around us.

We can never be LIKE someone else. They are an original copy - so are we. There is a power in our uniqueness that we forfeit when we abandon our identity for the identity of someone else. Our drive to be LIKE others is what makes it so easy to get lost in the victim thinking ways our society seems to settle for so easily today.

I get how alluring it is to be LIKE someone else. I love thinking I have the talent to play basketball like some of the superstars I idolize. I enjoy the feeling that comes with thinking that I can spend money LIKE the rich and powerful that I look up to. I cherish the attention that I get when I'm as smart or as wise or as impacting as those I want to be LIKE. Problem is that when it comes to basketball, money and change, I'm who I am, not who I would want to be. If I let that fact twist and turn my insides the way it did Satan, I'm just as doomed to failure as he was in the past and will be in the future.

Oh how things would have been different if Satan would have simply basked in the power of who God mad Him to be and let God be God. Same goes for you and for me. Life is so much more livable when we simply be all God has made us to be and put comparison aside. When I cease to compare my unique life to the uniqueness of another life I open the door to the power of my victor status. The only person I have any ability to be LIKE is me. That's the way God designed it. That's the only approach that will work in this world that is trying to victimize us in ways that will get us to doubt our victor status.

God isn't LIKE anyone or anything anywhere in the universe. He is 100% unique. He can't be duplicated. Powerful thing is that those statements hold just as true for you and for me. Isn't it time that we let our uniqueness kill the drive to be LIKE anything else in this world. Let today be filled with the power of you! God has made your victor status be all you need to live fully in the amazing creation you see each morning when you look in the mirror. Bask in your uniqueness and fight the drive to be LIKE anyone today.