I AM: FAVORED WEEK ONE - Day One: What is Favor?

By Central Women

Before we jump into the message of this week, let me first just say, “Welcome.”

Whoever you are and wherever you’ve come from, you are welcome at this table. Pull

up a chair and lean in with me today knowing this: You are loved, you are wanted, and

you are welcomed. For some of you, this study was an easy yes. For others, this study

was a timid and unsure step forward in your faith. To all of you, this study is for you and

it was written to you. So once again, I invite you to lean in today and receive. Receive

truth. Receive encouragement. Receive love. Receive your identity in Christ.

Because you are who He says you are.

The Bible is filled with descriptions of our identity in Christ. If we have turned from our

way of living and said yes to Jesus and His way, we are in Christ.

If we are in Christ, we are no longer who we once were, no longer defined by our sin and the sin that others have committed against us.

We become who God says we are. We have a new identity.

Identity is a topic in which Scripture does not hold back. If only we all knew what God’s

Word has to say about us, and even more importantly if we believed what it has to say

about us, I think we would see so much more freedom in our lives. The combination

of those two things (knowing and believing) would entirely change everything for us.

The world has done a pretty good job at confusing the message of truth in Scripture,

especially as it relates to our identity. Everyone and everything seems to shout at us a

different word than what God’s Word speaks over us. The wounds and brokenness from

our pasts have a way of causing us to believe that we are inferior, forgotten, discarded,

and rejected. However, God’s Word speaks a much better word over us and says, “In

Christ, you are chosen. In Christ, you are wanted. In Christ, you are made whole. In

Christ, you are favored.”

Welcome to FAVOR, my friends. If there is one thing I love about Jesus, there are 1000

things. He is lavish in all that He does and generous in all that He gives. He is good in

all His dealings with us, and FAVOR is the lens through which He works. The word favor

means excessive kindness and unfair partiality. Let that definition simmer for a little

while.

To be favored means to be the recipient of God’s excessive kindness and to

be on the receiving end of His unfair partiality.

It means that you get what you do not deserve (grace, mercy, forgiveness). Therefore, it also means that you don’t get what you do deserve (punishment, judgment, condemnation, death). To be favored means that the blended perfection of grace and mercy are your daily food.

For much of my life, I lived with what I’m going to call a spirit of poverty. The things that

had happened in my past that were less than notable or praiseworthy caused me to

believe the lie that I was somehow “less than” within the family of God. I might have

even laughed had someone told me that I was favored by God because my life sure

didn't look like one who was favored. I knew I was saved. I believed that my sins had

been forgiven. I loved Jesus, but I wasn’t fully convinced of His unconditional love for

me. When you don’t believe that you are loved, it’s easy to behave like someone who is

unloved. I sought for love in all the wrong places. I was desperate for acceptance and

attention. I craved affection. And I kept coming up short. Every time.

In all of my searching for these things, I erred in failing to recognize that all of it could

only be fully known in Jesus Christ. You see, you can only run so far for so long before

you eventually give out. The more I ran from God toward other things, the more empty I

felt. The more empty I became, the more my hope would fade—hope that lasting joy

could ever be found in all of these places and people that I kept running to.

But then, Jesus.

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Lamentations 3:21-22

THIS is favor. Try it on for size today.

Jesus, You are The Way, The Truth, and The Life. Help me to believe this truth that You

speak over me today. In You, I am favored. This is my identity. Thank You for loving me

with extravagance.

Reflect:

What is one way that you have experienced favor (excessive kindness or unfair

partiality) in your life?

Knowing what God says about you in His Word is quite different than believing what

He says about you in His Word. Now that you have an understanding of what the

word favor means, do you believe that you are favored by God?

Respond:

Journal a prayer of thanks to God for extending His favor to you.