Thursday, March 5, 2020

Labels

"Do not let your adornment by merely outward - arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel - 
rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God."
1 Peter 3:3-4 (NKJV)

Most of the food we buy has some kind of a label on it that identifies it by its brand name, the contents, and the nutrition information.  But what if the label was wrong?  What if there was some mistake and the information about the product was not correct, or if somehow the right label was switched with a wrong label?  If that was the case, you would not be able to trust what the label said, you would need to contact the manufacturer or see inside the package to know what was really in there.

There are a lot of labels that people use to identify themselves and others, and very often these labels are not correct.  Sometimes people are labeled things like "stupid", "failure", "victim", "worthless", or "underachiever".  But, are these labels really correct, and if so, why would they be?  How can we know if the label we or others have been given is the right label?  Could it be that sometimes people are given a label that is not right? Usually the label given a person is no real indication of what is inside of them.

We could say that God is our real "manufacturer" and He would know best what we really are and what our label should be.  We may have acquired a label though some experience in our life, but that does not mean that this is the correct label for us to wear for the rest of our life.  Don't just accept the label you have been given, even by yourself.  We need to look into God's Word and find out who we really are, who we have been made to be by God, and use that as our label.

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