Revival Series: What Does it Mean to Be Fully Alive?! (Pt 1)

Editor’s Note: The following is part 1 of 2 of a live Crowdcast talk on What Does it Mean to Be Fully Alive?! by Danielle Knight and Sefanit Stefanos. You’ll be able to read and watch part 2 by Sefanit on Friday 4/30/21. These talks are part of a 4-week Revival Series on desert fruits presented by our discipleship team. The rest of the talks are found here on the blog and on our YouTube channel starting on April 14, 2021.

1. God has an image of us and a love for us when He first breathes life into us

• He has a dream of who we are and what we will be, and He tries to nudge us along that path throughout our life
• Somewhere along the way we lose sight of that image 
• We begin to believe the same lies that Adam and Eve bought into years ago
• The lies that God is not good, that Jesus the shepherd is not the “Good Shepherd”
• We believe that God doesn’t really want us to be happy
• We believe God wants to take something away from us

2. As we start to build our lives surrounded by and buying into these lies, we begin to do a great discredit to ourselves

• We start to live a counterfeit life, a false life
• We seek to be and present ourselves as something other than who we really are
• We might harden our heart to our true feelings and to God’s voice
• We can’t accept the beautiful truth – that God wants us to have a full life, fully present, in the Spirit, available to God and those around us
• We don’t live like we’re made for more

3. Let’s think for a second – what does it mean not be fully alive?

• Fully dead? Yikes! 
• If we’re only partially alive, we’re partially dead – neither of those are good options
• Sefanit feels fully alive now that she is a wife and mother. Her heart is stretched, so much more vulnerable. So much more at risk. 
• Being fully alive doesn’t only mean we are walking around full of joy and on a cloud…we feel the struggles more keenly too!
• But we still can’t let our earthly concerns steal our peace and our joy
• God wants us to have freedom. We will still feel hurt, pain, joy, and loss…but whatever it is, we don’t have to lose ourselves in it. We can have peace from our freedom. Freedom as children of God and as the beloved
• We can’t have freedom if we don’t know who and whose we are

4. How can we begin to walk in our belovedness?

• What does this even mean?
• Starts with going to our desires – what were we made for?
• God planted desires in our heart…to be loved, to love, to belong. 
• There’s an invitation to find our belonging in Him…when we can begin to plant the real roots of our heart and mind, our identity, in Him, we step into new freedom…and it’s tastes good.                  
• Speaking the truths over who we are instead of the lies
• Believe that God is good and that He is on OUR side, our team. We are enough for Him, as we are
• We can accept ourselves as we are, delight in being who we are, take joy in our identity– because that’s what God does
• When we can delight in being ourselves, we are free to give to others with joy.
• We’ve believed so many lies – it’s so easy to buy into the negative voices around us, especially those of the enemy
• You have to tell yourself a lot of positive things to overcome one negative thing 
• We must start with the truth of who and whose we are – even if we only believe it in our heads at first…eventually God will help us receive it in our heart
• This can be a very difficult road for some of us
• We must receive God’s love in our heart
• We must let God see us, know us, love us, delight in us – it can be difficult!

5. So who are we?

• We are God’s beloved, the masterpiece of His creation
• We are chosen
• He is wildly, madly in love with us
• He delights in us
• When He beholds us, He is awestruck, caught dead in His tracks
• We captivate Him 
• We leave Him in wonder
• Once we love ourselves, we look at ourselves honestly and begin the restoration place from a place of belovedness
• We are worthy, good, wonderful, enough, beautiful, no mistake

Read the remaining five talking points on Friday when we post part 2!

Speaking of, check out our beautiful new BELOVED Collection now in the shop!