My Confidence & My Identity

This is something I made a while ago, used an adobe program and then typed up some stuff. I have been using it as the wallpaper for my laptop for (I think) about a month.

I was doing my devotions and was looking at an online commentary, sort of for fun and also to understand a little more of what I was reading (I was reading from Romans, and the commentary referenced a verse from 1st John in reference to something Paul was saying about the conscience, as another example).

The part from 1st John that was used:

1 John 3:19–22

This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence: if our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleased him.

The first part is what caught my attention, because there have been times where I have been overly reliant on my personal thoughts and my own conscience, instead of turning towards who the Holy Spirit says I am, and I was reminded that God is greater than all my worries and my own conscience doesn’t have more authority than His.

But what I copied down and used was the reason John says we have confidence:

“…Because we keep his commands and do what pleases Him.”

Almost right away, without really thinking, I went to Google stuff. I wanted to into a wallpaper for my desktop. But what I specifically heard when looking and internalizing that was:

“I keep my Father’s commands and do what pleases Him.”

There are sometimes where I need to remind myself of that, that my confidence and my identity can be summed up in that one short sentence.

So if I’m ever frustrated or worry that my focus is too involved in something else, I can look at that sentence and be confronted by what is true.