The Power of How You See Yourself

2 Corinthians 5:7 For we walk by faith and not by sight.

God has given you the principle, and the power to make permanent changes in your life, and in your circumstances. (Principle means: the basic way in which something works). But first you have to understand an important principle… it is the principle of Inner image, or how we see ourselves. But let's start by what God has to say about us.

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

When God created the earth, he had to first have an inner image or idea of what he wanted to create. He took the principle of the inner image and added faith and the power of His words, and created.

For your inner image to work, you need to use words for your base… the word of God. The word has supernatural power. If you fill that word with faith and speak it out, God’s power is released. You have to use words to get that image from the inside of you to the outside. Words are powerful; they are containers that can carry faith and love. Words are so important they can determine our eternal destiny.

Proverbs 18: 21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

We are the only creature on the planet that has the power to speak words. Words can destroy or they can create. Words can take an inner image and project it to the outside world. Once you understand that… you can put the principle of the inner image to work in your life. Words not only release the creative force of faith; they also produce images.

When you hear the word dog, you form a picture in your mind of a dog. that is an inner image; words paint pictures in our minds. We have to get that inner image to line up with the word of God. God’s words are packed with faith. That faith is the energy that is in the word that gives it power to bring itself to pass. In other words, transfers it from inner image to a physical reality.

Isaiah 55: 11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

God’s word is a living thing. It is alive with Gods own faith. Just as Gods faith energized the words he spoke, the faith he has given you, mixed with his words can create new realities in your life. By the power of the Holy Spirit you have faith inside of you. When your inner image matches Gods word, then your faith can produce the end result that God desires for it to produce.

You need to realize that when you start putting these principles and this power to work. You are going to run into some heavy resistance from Satan. He is going to do everything he can to stop you because you have just become one of his greatest enemies. And because he understands the power of the inner image, he will work hard to distort that image. He will try to up root the word of God that has been planted inside you.

Sometimes we decide, I am going to turn over a new leaf in my life, I am going to make some changes. You get geared up, excited, ready to shake those old habits that have been haunting you. Then, something happens, your determination weakens your new leaf begins to look similar to your old leaf, suddenly you find yourself back where you started. Nothing has changed, you begin to doubt if things will ever change. This has happened to all of us more times than we would like to admit. God has given us the power to make permanent changes in our lives when we understand the principal of inner image.

1 Corinthians 2:12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

How can we make our inner image match what God sees? Paul tells the church in Corinth that Holy Spirit or Spirit of God gives us knowledge freely. All we have to do is ask, it is God’s desire to share His knowledge with us. Don’t waste your time trying to dream up an inner image of your own.

God Spirit speaks to us through his word. If you fill that word with faith and speak it out, it will work to change your circumstances as surely as it did for God created the earth. When God wanted light he said, “let there be light”. The words he spoke were directly related to his inner image. He used His words to get that image from the inside to the outside. Words are powerful, they are containers that carry faith and Love. Words can also carry fear and hate. Words are so important that they can determine our eternal destiny.

Romans 10:9-10 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

You already have the faith, you used it for the first time when you confessed Jesus as your Lord and received salvation.

Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

Power of life and death are in the power of the tongue. We are the ones who will choose which of those, life or death, we will speak into existence. We have the power to speak words, no other creature on earth has that power. We can use those words to destroy or create. They take an inner image and project it to the outside world. Once you understand that you can your inner image to work in your life.

You may be working to be a winner while seeing yourself as a loser. How do you change that? With the word of God. I am talking about getting your image lined up with the word of God. God sees you as loved, forgiven, His child.

Hebrews 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

Everything that is or has been, or will ever be was brought about either directly or indirectly by the word of God. Words are packed with faith and power. In fact, that faith is the energy that is in the word that gives it the power to bring itself to pass.

Isaiah 55:11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

God’s word is a living thing, it is alive with Gods own faith. By the power of the Holy Spirit. You have faith inside you as a born-again believer. When your inner image matches Gods word then your faith can produce the end result that God desires for it to produce. Our desires and faith must match up to the plan God has for our lives.

Putting these principals to work in your life will run into some resistance from Satan. He is going to do everything he can to stop you because as a co-worker with God you become Satan’s greatest enemy. Satan wants to stop the word of God from taking root in your heart so that you can believe and have the faith to speak it into existence.

Satan is working to stop you from cultivating an inner image of the Word in yourself. He knows once you have that inner image of God in you that nothing can stop you from receiving power, knowledge, and wisdom from God. Once you get in agreement with the word, Satan can’t stop it from coming to pass. It is the word in you that he is after, not just you.

He will use these five things to get your mind off Gods word and onto natural things: 1. Persecution, 2. Affliction, 3. Cares of this world. 4. Deceitfulness with riches. And 5. Lust of the flesh and things.

Paul says, walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). When your body says I am sick, remind your body that you believe it is healed. When you have the same image inside of you that is the same as Gods inner image of you then you can be confident that your body is going to change, it has no choice, it has to line up with the word of God.

Your mind is like a camera, the picture it takes is just an image of what it sees. It produces a likeness or image of the real thing. You can’t give an image that is not from God dominion over you. Once you have a clear image on the inside of you and you release your faith, that which is inside of you becomes reality on the outside.

Get into the word and let it begin to shape images within you, then speak it out in power and faith in the name of Jesus.

Brother Andy Freeman