Dharius Daniels - How Do You See Yourself?

They did not lose to the Giants in the land; they lost to the grasshopper in their heads. I am telling you, as it was for them, so it is for us. There are times when the Giant in the land is not the problem; the Giant in the city is not the problem; the Giant in the region is not the problem. You were born for that Giant; you were built for that Giant; you’ve been selected for that Giant; you’ve been engineered for your area. God didn’t make a mistake; he knew exactly where to put you, and he knew exactly when to put you there. You’ve been built with what you need to take off the Goliath in your area. How far we go and how much we grow is not just determined by what God thinks about us; it is also impacted by what we think about ourselves. How far we grow and how much we go isn’t just determined by what we believe about God; that’s right, it is also impacted by what we believe about us. How far we go and how much we grow aren’t just determined by how we see God; it is also impacted by how we see ourselves. Numbers 13 is an incredible case study of this reality because Israel is poised in position to possess the promised land. But once the spies bring back a report about the opposition that exists in the promised land, Israel refuses to fight a fight that was already fixed. They allowed the enemy to use the tool of intimidation to stop them from trying something that, if they had attempted it, they would have been successful. The Bible attributes their lack of effort not to seeing God wrongly—that’s not the text—it says, «We were as grasshoppers in our own eyes, and in theirs also.» Listen to me: they did not lose to the Giants in the land; they lost to the grasshopper in their heads. I am telling you, as it was for them, so it is for us. There are times when the Giant in the land is not the problem, the Giant in the city is not the problem, and the Giant in the region is not the problem. You were born for that Giant; you were built for that Giant; you’ve been selected for that Giant; you’ve been engineered for your area. God didn’t make a mistake; he knew exactly where to put you, and he knew exactly when to put you there. You’ve been built with what you need to take off the Goliath in your area, but the problem isn’t the Giant in the land; it’s the grasshopper in our heads. I want to tell you something: when the enemy, who is obsessed with influencing our thinking, can’t change what you believe about God, his next step is to change what you believe about yourself. When he can’t change what you believe about God, his next step is to try to change what you believe about you. I want you to hear this because I grew up in a church tradition that I would describe as eclectic. My dad was a Baptist pastor, then he ran into some Pentecostals who were part of the Church of God in Christ. It was old school; they would come to your house in those days, put the Holy Ghost circle around you, and they would conduct something called tearing service in your house. My dad became something like a Bapticostal; I don’t know what we were. Anyway, I grew up in this tradition where humility was important, so there was an obsession with pride and arrogance—which I’m not critiquing. However, I’ve come to see something: the enemy is not just at work with arrogance; he is also at work with inadequacy. Because I grew up in a context that was pride-obsessed, my understanding of humility became synonymous with inadequacy. Yes! So good! I had this conceptual understanding of humility that was not Christ-centered. Christ is the ultimate example of every spiritual virtue, including humility. With Jesus, you see humility, but you do not see inadequacy. One writer framed it this way: arrogance doesn’t come from knowing who you are, what you can do, or what you have. Arrogance comes when you forget who gave it to you! Come on! Much of what we know about Jesus, he said about himself, which says to us that he operates with a degree of self-awareness that is absolutely essential for all of us to accomplish our assignments. If Jesus needed it for his assignment, we need it for ours. The enemy knows it, so when he cannot get you with arrogance, he swings the pendulum to the other extreme. The same enemy that orchestrates and influences attitudes of arrogance is the same enemy that orchestrates and influences attitudes of inadequacy. And listen to me, Simeon family, listen to me: inadequacy has assassinated just as many assignments as arrogance. It’s because pride very often is public, but inadequacy is inconspicuous. I’ve got examples throughout scripture of this. As a matter of fact, this is the issue that God had to regularly address with some of the people he used the most. You will often see that when God calls someone, the first thing he has to do is talk them out of inadequacy. He calls inadequacy, picks up the phone, and calls Moses, who starts telling God all the reasons he can’t do what he hears God calling him to do.