Without Rival

Embrace Your Identity and Purpose in an Age of Confusion and Comparison

Lisa Bevere

• Publisher: Revell
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781493404988
• Topic: Théologie et religion

Now a New York Times bestseller!There is a reason we look at others as rivals and limit ourselves to comparison and competition. We have an enemy assaulting our mind, will, and emotions in the hope that we'll turn on ourselves and each other. It's a cycle that isolates us from intimate connections, creates confusion about our identity, and limits our purpose.In Without Rival, bestselling author Lisa Bevere shares how a revelation of God's love breaks these limits. You'll learn how to stop seeing others as rivals and make the deep connections with your Creator you long for--connections that hold the promise of true identity and intimacy. With biblically sound teaching filled with prophetic insight for our day, Lisa uses humor and passion to challenge you to Flip rivalry so it brings out the best in you Stop hiding from conversations you need to be a part of Answer the argument that says women are unfit, easily deceived, and gullible Dismantle gender rivalry and work with the men in your lifeIt's time to step forward to live a life without rival.

1
An Identity without Rival

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Have you ever had a rival?

I don’t mean a bit of friendly competition in sports. Nor am I referring to toddlers who compete for the attention and affection of their parents.

I’m thinking in terms of a more consistent detractor. A rival certainly does not feel like a friend or like family. When rivalry comes into play, its goal is not so much to win the game as it is to remove you from the field.

But what if you discovered that the life you have always wanted was outside the realm of competition? What if you learned you did not have to lose to opt out of the game? What if you discovered you couldn’t lose? What if you could not only think outside of the box but also choose to live outside of it?

Decades ago I read a book that suggested that the end of the world as we know it would be brought about by widespread alienation (rather than an alien invasion). It theorized that the time would come when the world would be divided into two opposing camps or trains of thought. When this climate of widespread division existed, then it would be a small thing to incite opposing factions into attacking one another until we experienced a full-blown apocalypse.

Any systematic division this extensive would start on a much more intimate scale. It can begin close to home where divided houses are filled with wounded people with divided hearts. There are very real forces that whisper lying innuendos that assault your mind, your will, and your emotions in the hope of causing you to turn on yourself and then to turn on others.

It is hard to escape the messages and messengers that tell us we are not good enough, young enough, smart enough, fast enough, and rich enough. We are bombarded in the hope that we will shrink to their expectations. It is only human nature that we would want to deflect this incessant bullying that implies we are never enough. When this harassment reaches a critical point, some will yield by conforming and copying, while others will rebel as they sling back accusations of their own.

We judge when we feel judged.

We shame when we feel shame.

We hate when we dislike ourselves.

When we’ve been bankrupted, it is not long before we want to rob others. It is a cycle in which everyone loses and nobody wins. But what if the words of Paul were true?

But godliness with contentment is great gain. (1 Tim. 6:6)

Godliness is the ability to adopt God’s vantage point. This means just as we acknowledge how he sees others, we embrace how he sees us.

Contentment and being truly comfortable in your own skin won’t breed complacency; they will release creativity! Turn away from all the detractors and distractions. He has his eyes on us so we can lift our eyes to him.

What then?

Rather than compete for what was never meant for you . . . you would have the energy to discover what is yours.

I pray this book brings clarity to what the unwholesome everyday muddies. Rather than striving to win a competition that gains you nothing, I want you positioned to win the war. There is a very real battle going on for the strength of your soul. It is time you took your place in this world. Let’s expose the lies and distractions and find out who you really are.

Lost and Found

I love dogs. Recently, while I was far from home on a trip to South Korea, our beloved dog, Tia, was impounded. Apparently, a workman left the front door of our home open, and Tia left behind the warmth of our house in an attempt to brave the streets of a subzero Colorado winter. For whatever reason, she didn’t find her way home that night. A yet unidentified neighbor was kind enough to take her in overnight and then drop her off the next day at the animal shelter.

Tia had a tag on, but it was next to useless because the phone number on the tag was no longer connected to our house. Then add into this mix the fact that her dog license had expired (sorry, I thought it was a onetime process) and you have a much-loved dog with a home but with no voice or identity markers to help her find it.

In Seoul, Korea, I was oblivious. My sons had wisely chosen to hide Tia’s misadventure from me, but no doubt there was panic on the home front. They looked and looked but couldn’t find the dog anywhere. They feared the coyotes had gotten her. As a last resort, almost on a lark, they followed someone’s suggestion and called the dog pound.

When Austin arrived at the shelter and saw Tia, he wasn’t sure she was our dog. The ordeal had so completely changed her demeanor that she appeared depressed rather than excited to see him. She remained in the corner of the cage, shaking and cowering. After Austin paid the equivalent of a night in a fine hotel and some hefty fines (apparently an expired license is severely frowned upon), she was ours to bring home once again.

When I returned home and learned of the whole story, I was a little hurt. Not by my sons but by my dog. Tia had been our dog for more than a decade, and this was the first time she had ever wandered away and not returned on her own. I was concerned . . . why now? Were her cataracts affecting her vision? Had her advanced age disoriented her? Was she looking for me?

Ultimately, the reason she left did not matter. She belonged to our family and her inability to find her own way home did not negate this fact. The search was made, the fine was paid, the license was renewed, and she was pulled out of her cage of shame and returned to her place on our bed at my feet. One errant night was not cause enough for us to disown her.

You probably know where I’m going with this. If we (imperfect pet owners that we so obviously are) would do this much for a dog, what would our heavenly Father do for us? Your first step in knowing your identity is found in who you are to him. First John 3:1 gives us a window into how God sees us.

What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it—we’re called children of God! That’s who we really are. But that’s also why the world doesn’t recognize us or take us seriously, because it has no idea who he is or what he’s up to. (Message)

Let’s talk about just how marvelous God’s love is. It is awe inspiring, spectacular, and over-the-top. It is the very opposite of mundane or ordinary. Its depth is enough to cause us to marvel. And this marvelous love is an extension, kind of like a gift with a purchase but better, because this is a gift with a gift. We were gifted salvation. God saw us in our wretched, caged state, cowering in the corner of some religious humane society, and paid the price to save us. But he didn’t stop there. He drew us close, renewed our license, and identified us as his own. (All before we’d even had a bath!) You really are his. And he loves all of his children marvelously. But he loves them uniquely.

Equal or Unique?

Often in our human attempts to make all things fair, we are tempted to think that God loves us all the same. As good as this may initially sound, same just isn’t big enough. The word same implies that we might be somehow replaceable or interchangeable. Like, “Oh no, I broke one of the purple glasses I bought at Target last week; I hope they still have the same ones in stock.” Or using my current example, “The dog I loved for more than a decade wandered off the grid. That’s okay; I’ll just buy another one to replace her and I will love it just the same.”

This doesn’t work for me, and I don’t believe it works for God either—and I will tell you why.

One afternoon I took a nap. The problem was I was on my laptop and not my bed when I fell asleep. As my head bobbed forward, I abruptly woke up to discover eight pages of the letter “t.”

At which point I felt I really should go and take a real nap. So I picked up the dog at my feet and wandered off to my bedroom. As I was dozing off, I heard the Holy Spirit whisper, “I do not love my children equally.”

Shocked, I sat straight up in my bed. Where did this blasphemous thought come from? I blurted out, “You have to love us the same or else it wouldn’t be fair.”

My protest was answered with, “I don’t. Equal implies my love can be measured, and I assure you . . . it cannot. Same would mean my children are replaceable or interchangeable, and they are not. My heart is not divided into compartments. No one could take the place of or displace another in my heart. For you see, I don’t love my children equally, I love them uniquely.”

Take a deep breath and listen. God loves us uniquely rather than equally. Believe me, unique is better.

If you have more than one child, you probably already understand this. When that second, third, or later child was born, your love was not divided. It was multiplied in ways that were immeasurable. You couldn’t quantify your love for each child even if you tried. How can you measure the pull on your heart? Your love for each child is unique. Each one awakens your parental love in a different manner. Interestingly, you may love something unique about one child that is the opposite trait of something you love in another. For example, I have a feisty granddaughter who is a whirlwind. She is the sister of my firstborn grandson, who is intentional and gentle. I don’t compare them. I love, enjoy, and appreciate their very different approaches to life. I would not want them to act the same for the world. Neither one of them occupies more of the real estate of my heart; I love both of them completely, but uniquely.

Equal also implies God’s love is measured or measurable, and it is neither. It’s infinite. Unique carries so much more depth. There is only one like you! St. Augustine said it best: “God loves each of us as if there was only one of us.”

Our Father’s love cannot be likened to a pan of brownies or a cherry pie that is painstakingly cut by a loving parent into equal portions so that no child feels slighted. His marvelous love is not subject to portion control. Do you understand he loved you before there was a beginning, and his love for you knows no end? You can turn from him, run away, and make your bed in hell, but your actions will not stop his love. (Seriously, though, who’d want to sleep in hell?)

Through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord said this about his love: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you” (Jer. 31:3).

Notice the tense here. It is past. His love is a settled matter. He loved you, the real you, the unique you, with an everlasting, never-ending, it doesn’t matter how old or how young, how thin or how heavy you are kind of love. He loved you when you were young and foolish. He loves me more mature and random. God is love. Our Father does not have love for you . . . he is love for you.

Our Father’s marvelous love for us is infinite, intimate, and unique. And you are uniquely loved because you were uniquely created.

Unique means “the sole example of, prototype or only one,” and my favorite definition, “without equal or rival.” Our Father God stands alone without rival, so we shouldn’t be surprised that in his eyes we are daughters without rival, which eliminates every reason that we should ever compete with one another.

You are the only example of you!

You are the beginning and the end of you. There is not a designer sample scheduled for mass production. In his lineage, there are no copies, or same, and no equal. There is no rival for the way you express his love to others or for how he expresses his love to you. No one can do you like you!

God uniquely created your DNA and knit your frame in secret so he could surprise the world. He authored how your heart expresses itself; he was the architect of your smile and the melody of your voice; he made all of your features with the fondest thoughts of only you in mind. He celebrated along with your parents your first smile and watched with affection your first steps.

Because of this tender, intentional care, there are multiple facets of your life that express and reflect his love uniquely. He wove all these exceptional aspects and specific talents into the package of you, his daughter. He knew each attribute would be expressed best through your feminine form.

He knew you would represent and relate to him best as a daughter. This is the very reason he chose female for your gender. There is a very tender bond between fathers and daughters.

He didn’t have another daughter in mind when he fashioned you . . . you are his delight.

This means you wouldn’t do it better if you were taller, shorter, blacker, or whiter.

This also means you would not be a better carrier of the love he has entrusted to you if you were a male. God does not love sons more and daughters less. Nor does he love each gender equally. He loves male and female uniquely. Perhaps as you grew up you heard whispers, or even shouts, that your father or mother wished you’d been born a son. Maybe there was a time you wished you’d been born a male too. But know this . . . God never did.

Our Father rejoiced when you drew your first breath, and as the years unfolded, the angels of heaven rejoiced with him when you were reborn as his Spirit-quickened daughter.

Marvelously loved one, there is absolutely nothing accidental about you.

A Daughter without Rival

So what does all this mean? It means there is more than enough immeasurable, inexhaustible love for us all. You don’t have to fight for your place at the table or win his love. No one can take you out or replace you . . . you have no rival.

But friends, that’s exactly who we are: children of God. And that’s only the beginning. Who knows how we’ll end up! What we know is that when Christ is openly revealed, we’ll see him—and in seeing him, become like him. All of us who look forward to his Coming stay ready, with the glistening purity of Jesus’ life as a model for our own. (1 John 3:2–3 Message)

Together we’re going to discover how to be our full selves—not someone else in an attempt to earn the love and acceptance of others. We’re going to stop comparing ourselves with others because comparison is not inspiration. Comparison is cheating us and this earth of who we truly are. Where is the need for comparison or competition if our value and identity are ultimately tied to our innate...