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Sunday Service
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"For you formed my inward parts. You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." — Psalm 139:13–14
So who is that person who says, "I am ugly and I am upset"? That thing you call ugly in me is a wonder of God. It's a fearful thing in the sight of God.
So he said, "I am wonderfully and fearfully made. Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well." My soul understands your workings in my life. My soul understands your doings. You may not understand me, but my soul understands me. All I need is that my soul understands me — and not you.
If we learn to walk with God with this understanding, it makes us walk with him with contentment. It brings us into a place of godliness and makes us understand God in whatever he does in our lives. It takes us out of every comparison and makes you become fulfilled in yourself — makes you become who you are.
"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." — Ephesians 2:10
I am God's masterpiece. He took time to make me. He spent time to breathe himself into us. We are his workmanship — created not in any man, but in Christ Jesus. Not for bad works, but for good works, which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Turn to the one next to you and say, "Pastor Danso says, be yourself." Turn to another and say, "Neighbor, be yourself."
I'm sharing briefly on this theme: Be yourself. Be that person God has created you to be, and not another man.
We are living in an age and generation and world that puts pressure on us. Everything is adding pressure — and the worst of all, social media puts a lot of pressure on us:
"I want to dream like Rev would dream. I want to dream like Pastor Era would dream." So I am running the race of my life, but I've left my lane and I'm running in other people's lanes. I see myself running faster — little do I know I've been disqualified long ago.
You are going to that place or point, still looking around at what people are doing, what people are saying about you, what they are thinking about you. You are living according to the expectation of other people. It will take you long to get to your destination. Leave them behind. Brush them off and focus on your agenda.
A lot of us have allowed the wealth, the pleasures, and the pressure of this world to take us out of who we are. And it has replaced us with other people's images. So even in the church, we are not ourselves. We try to adjust ourselves to fit in.
When it comes to prayer, I look at the way pastor is praying and I want to learn to pray the same. But I don't have the capacity. I don't know how he or she built that capacity, and I don't want to know. All I want is to become like they do. But listen — people sometimes take time to build their own capacity to become who they are.
God sent Samuel to anoint David, but when persecution came, the only place he could run to was the cave of Adullam. People around said, "What sort of king is this?" Even his brothers said, "You carry the anointing, but you are hiding in caves. We are living in the city and enjoying city life, and you are hiding yourself in the bush."
But that was the moment he was being prepared. He was being built up because he wanted his spiritual man to be fortified and strong, so that when he launched out, his confidence was not despised by anybody. He was not looking for anybody's approval or applause because he had spent time with God in secret.
So when God is showcasing him in the open, don't go and say, "I want to be like David." He spent time in the cave. When you were sleeping, when you were eating, when you said you don't have time, when you were preoccupied with other stuff — he was with God in the cave.
And the painful thing — even in the cave, the people God sent his way, the Bible describes as impotent, sick, broken, people in more pain and misery than David himself. God sent them to him and said, "Take care of them."
Sometimes in your time of pain, God will still send people your way to help them. Sometimes in prayer you say, "I've not even finished praying for myself, let alone interceding for others."
Be yourself. Tell your neighbor again: Be yourself.
Somewhere along the line, we lose our true identity when we try to seek people's approval and live according to their expectations. "How would they talk about me? How would they think about me?" So I put on a form to belong.
Meanwhile, inside of me there is a still small voice — a whispering telling me, this is not you.
We have learned to talk in a certain way. The pressure is making us behave, act, and do things in a certain way so that men will applaud us, men will approve us. But in the midst of it, there is that voice that will never stop convicting you within that that is not you. So you become hopeless in yourself, because you are living the identity of other people, not your own.
Your race has been marked for you only. If you can run that race and stay in your lane, when you get there your story will be better than the story you have heard.
God will never spend time making you an echo when in his intention he has made you a voice.
You are following and serving a God who designed you purposely. He designed you with intention. He never duplicated you. So if you go searching for other people's image to live by, you are living as a duplication of other people.
You can learn from others, but imitate Christ. Walk with God and let him give you approval. Let men say they will never recognize you — but in your secret:
When the stop comes, you can stand. When gossips come, you will not be distracted. When envy arises, you will still be you. When jealousy comes, you walk better.
In 1 Samuel 17, the Bible describes a man called David so beautifully. His brothers were on the battlefield. The father called him: "Go and see how they are faring." He took the time, the energy, the risk, and journeyed all the way.
When he arrived, the Bible says as soon as he saw his brothers, he dropped his stuff, ran to them, saluted them, and gave them the respect they deserved. Just as he was talking to them, the champion Goliath came in and spoke his usual words.
When Goliath finished, everybody ran away, leaving David alone in the open. He had never been on the battle front before, but he was left there. He was confused, thinking, "I thought you people said you had come to battle. So why are you running away?"
How long is it going to take you to run away from your destiny and purpose when the battle is still there? Because your running will not let the battle stop.
But how long will you keep yourself in the wilderness when the city is there to rule?
David asked about the reward. The king had said whoever defeats this man would be enriched, empowered, and given the king's daughter in marriage. Those words caught David's attention because he was not married. If he could risk his life, marriage was there free — no dowry, and riches on top.
So David said, "I can defeat this man." The people reported it to Saul, and Saul called him. David said, "Let no man's heart fail. Your servant is able to go and fight this Philistine who has defied the army of the God of Israel."
Sometimes take the battle from the humanity and send it to the divinity. There are times you need to fast and get on your knees and pray about that decision, that plan, that thing you want to do — before you step in, so that mistakes are minimized. You walk circumspectly as a wise person, not as a fool.
Saul said, "Listen, this man has been fighting from his youth, and you are only now beginning your youth. You are not able to fight."
David replied, in effect: "Let me give you a little bit of my CV. It might not suit you. It might not be what you're looking for, but I have done something. I've not been on this battlefield before, but there is something I've done in secret which I can boast of. I don't want to boast on another person's achievement — I want to boast on my own. I have killed a bear. I have killed a lion."
So he brought Goliath from a human aspect into an animal aspect, so that when he stepped out, he knew how to fight him.
Whatever is standing in your way speaking, may God silence that voice. Anything putting fear in your life, may the Lord take it away. Whatever has made you go into hiding, may God bring you into the open.
Saul said, "Your CV looks good. I don't know how you're going to do it. Anyway, the Lord be with you." The Bible says Saul decorated David, clothed him nicely, gave him armor he had never worn before. David saw himself in the mirror — "I look good. I am dressed. I am a warrior. I'm going." But as he began to move, he could not walk.
There are things that, because you are in the image of others, God is not giving you the ability to do — because he has not graced you from the foundation of the earth to do that thing.
So when others are prospering, don't envy them. Leave them to run their race, and look for your own race and run it well.
You are not an accident. You were created in his own image, and when he was creating you, he never consulted anyone's opinion. He never sought the advice of any man.
"Let us make man in our own image, and in our likeness" — and we became just like that.
So he didn't go to Reverend Ray and say, "Reverend Ray, I want to make Pastor Danso. Which way should I put him, and which face should I give him?" No — he just spoke me, and I became. So why must I be worried about the opinion of Reverend or Reverend Ray when God never consulted them in creating me?
Be yourself. Drop any mask. Let go of pretension. We have been pretending too long. Let's drop it and be us.
David simply said, "I've not tried this before."
Church is run on the mindset of God. Other people may do differently — do your own.
Be yourself in your workplace. Be yourself in your home. Be yourself in your family. Be you among your friends. Be you in the community. Be you in the country. Be you. Don't put on the form. Drop it, so God can do with you and do with you well.
He works well with people who come clean and open to him. He's not looking for the person pretending to be who he is not.
He's the God who knows you. He's looking for the person he sees, the person he knows, the person he wants to walk and work with. Allow him to see you so that he can work with you.
It's good to beautify ourselves, but when you go home, take the makeup off — and you see that that is you. Look in there, lift up your voice and thank God: this is me. You will see that you are more beautiful than every decoration you can put on yourself.
When God steps in here and is looking for people, he wants to know the you he created — not in the image of another person he created. So if God comes in and Pastor Danso is put in the form of Reverend and he's looking for me, he won't find me. Let God find you when he's looking for his people.
David said, "I have not tried this before." So they removed everything, and now he dressed up in his own — what he was noted for. He was a shepherd boy. He could throw stones; he could never throw a javelin. He never killed the lion with the javelin. He never killed the bear with a sword. He went with his own self — that simplicity of himself, that usual that he knew.
When you become you and you accept you — not rejecting you — you make it easy for God to work with you. Anytime you reject yourself and reject who you are, you question the integrity and wisdom of God in creating you. You are making God doubt: "Were you the one I created?"
There was a time we used to learn how people walk — from people in school. So you hold your shoulder like this, and that's how you go. We realized that instead of God making us straight, we are becoming half. There is no other order of the day than the order God has set for us.
Be yourself. Accept yourself. Ask God to help you:
Tell God to make you drop anything that has become heavy on you, so you are not able to move into destiny and purpose. You have so many plans, but the ideas God is dropping in your life, you are rejecting — and you are appreciating the ideas of other people instead.
If you will wait on the Lord in the light of his word, he will direct your path and lead you in the way you should go.
I pray for us today:
That the Lord lifts the burden of pretending from our lives. That God gives us grace to stand and be who we are in Christ Jesus. Anything that will distract us, anything that will take us out of his will and purpose, may God himself intervene and grant mercy.
I pray for everyone at the sound of my voice, O God, that today you will bring us to the place called the potter's house and make us know that some of us — we are so broken within, though on the outside we look good.
Heal the wounds. Somebody did us evil, and because of that, it has left a scar in us. Help us. Help us. Make us again. Build us again, so that we may stand and endure to the end.
We thank you and we bless you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
