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WINNING WITH THE WORD “Winning with the Word” is a weekly blog that will help you to be a winner in life by applying God’s principles for living the abundant life as found in the Bible, God’s manual for life. AN INVITATION TO YOU: To follow this blog, click here.  If this blog has blessed you, please encourage your family and friends to subscribe as well. Thank you! ______________________________________           Do you prefer listening instead of reading? Then click below to listen to today’s blog post:   https://media.blubrry.com/winning_with_the_word/content.blubrry.com/winning_with_the_word/WWW_Podcast_08242020_Who_Am_I_Really_.mp3 ______________________________________________ Hello and Happy Day! This is Dr. MaryAnn Diorio, Novelist and Life Coach, welcoming you to another episode of Winning with the Word. Today is Monday, August 24, 2020. Today’s Podcast is Episode #33 in Series 2020 and is titled "Who Are You Really?"   _______________________________________________   We hear a lot of talk these days about self-image, self-esteem, and self-fulfillment.  All of this discussion has as its goal discovering who we really are. While discovering our true identity is crucial, most of us are going about it the wrong way. We are looking in the wrong place to discover who we really are. We are looking to ourselves. Let's take a deeper look. Have you noticed that all of these phrases--self-image, self-esteem, self-fulfillment--include the word "self"? It seems as though the entire goal of life is to find ourselves. We think that in finding ourselves, we will ultimately find the meaning of life and our purpose in life.  But is this really true? Is it really true that when we find ourselves, we will discover who we really are? That we will discover the meaning of life and our life purpose? The answer to this question lies in God's Holy Word. What does God say about finding ourselves? In Matthew 10: 39, God says this about our search for ourselves:  "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Hmm. Now that's the exact opposite of what the world has taught us, isn't it? The world has taught us that we need to find ourselves in order to discover the meaning of life. God says that if we focus on finding ourselves to discover the meaning of life, we will eventually not only lose ourselves, but we will also miss the meaning of life. On the other hand, if we focus on finding God, we will find ourselves and the true meaning of our lives. Why does finding ourselves depend on finding God? Because God is our Maker. To expect the self to know the purpose for which it was made is like asking a car to know the purpose for which it was made. The car is incapable of knowing its own purpose. Only the maker of the car can tell us the purpose for which the car exists. Likewise, the self is incapable of knowing its own purpose. Only the Maker of the self can tell the self the purpose for which the self exists. While this may be a weak analogy, I think you get my point.  You see, my friend, we were made in God's image. Precisely for that reason, our true identity lies only in Him.  if we ignore or deny that truth, we will miss the very meaning of our lives. The world's emphasis on the self takes our eyes off the true source of our identity, and that source is God Himself. When we look to ourselves to define ourselves, we will be deceived and go astray. We will lose our bearings. But when we look to God to define us, we will discover who we really are. To seek our identity outside of this truth is to end up with a false image of who we truly are. Yet, this is exactly what Satan tempts us to do. Liar that he is, Satan tempts us to believe that we can know ourselves by ourselves. He tempts us to isolate ourselves from our Maker.  But isolation leads to desolation. And that is precisely the goal of the enemy. The Bible says he comes only "to steal,