Accept Who You Are

Kristine Cucinotta Murphy

Filing out paperwork for mine husband’s specialist appointment this morning, I read the options to circle “life partner”, “gay/lesbian or gay/queer” and “transgender” made me want to set that piece of paper on fire. Or, in the least ball it up and send it airborne, but I didn’t and just filled it out for him, giving mine anger to God

Psalms 7:11
God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.

as I circled:

Straight Married Male

I know we all at times have had our sin and identity crisis at some point in our lifetime.

Romans 3:23
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Especially those youth years wanting to fit in to what made us comfortable or be a loner even back then. Some later in life; midlife crisis and menopause. We all suffer a hormonal change twice in our lifetime some more severe than others.

John 16:33
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Some of us still having a hard time knowing our identity doing the “church” hopping of different denominations to what we like and where we feel comfortable.

Galatians 2:20
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

We need to know our identity and accept our true identity, even if it makes us uncomfortable.

Preach even if your voice shakes!

Joshua 1:9
Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

I went through my own intense study of “know your worth” in a season of singleness.

No, we are not always going to like who we are. I know, there’s influences and what we have been taught. Myself, growing up with nothing but boys. A true tomboy, playing years of 1st base in little league baseball up to the minors, karate to green belt, chew spitting, beer chugging, corn husking, crab picking, bass fishing, brick laying, labor working youngin. We all have our up bringing and our preferences.

Most all of our old ways must change. We must be reborn to live a new life in new ways. New ways aren’t always welcomed but they are new for a reason.

Matthew 9:17
Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.

We have reservations being changed for an eternity of preservation.

Philippians 1:6
Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

But, we must know our worth and show our worth is in Jesus Christ and that is a “straight” narrow path of an unbreakable “covenant”.

Matthew 7:14
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Nehemiah 9:32
Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before thee, that hath come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all thy people, since the time of the kings of Assyria unto this day.

Grasping onto any other identity than who we truly are is a crooked place. It is a flesh feeding frenzy.

Isaiah 45:2
I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:

God has specifically designed the roles of a man and a woman in his own image to bring him glory and we all need to study and show ourselves approved unto God.

Genesis 1:27
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Women are to dress modestly. Men are to lead in all humility. Women are to lead a quiet life and men are to work and provide. Women are to stay at home and keep house.

And, let me tell you keeping house is a work load. It is wrong to think it isn’t doing anything, of no importance or insignificant. If a woman is bored keeping house, she ain’t doing it right. And, if she is that good at it, she needs to spend her extra time helping other women who struggle to keep house; the handicapped, the widowed or elder.

Ruth 1:16-22
And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:

and teaching the younger women.

Bored, just don’t like it, or not my preference isn’t an excuse to get out of our designated roles, that’s disobedience.

1 Samuel 15:23
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

We are all called to servanthood to be humble.

1 Peter 5:5
Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.

How so contrast the flesh and Holy Spirit are and how they battle against one another daily.

Galatians 5:17-18
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

But, that we accept who and how God created us now a straight male or female to marry of the opposite sex or stay single. We have to accept what gender we were born in until we shed this corrupt body for the incorruptible body. It’s obedience God delights in.

1 Samuel 15:22
And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

No doubt there is no male nor female in the Spirit. But, we are still yet in these fleshly bodies for a higher purpose.

We are called to be clothed in humility.

An apple is an apple and a banana is a banana. I could show you an apple and tell you it’s a banana until I am blue in my face and you know I am wrong and it’s an apple. Same thing with this “gender” preference, not liking or being comfortable for what one is. I’m not comfortable with apples, what they do to me, how they taste what they look like and what an apple represents. I can keep telling you or myself it’s a banana but it still ain’t gonna change that apple, no matter how I slice it. I can shape it to look like a banana, but it’s still an apple.

Be who God created you to be!

The body of Christ the same. You are the part, God created you to be, you have worth and purpose and you have been given your own role and gift. You might not like the role or gift you were given, but to receive and joyfully live it out as unto the LORD.

1 Corinthians 12:4-14
Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.

5 And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.

6 And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.

7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.

8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;

9 To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;

10 To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:

11 But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.

12 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.

13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

14 For the body is not one member, but many.

It’s your gift specifically made for you. Just like your body, your gender and your marital status. Own what God gave you and be thankful and let him work what he needs to work in you; His Masterpiece, the apple of his eye.

Ephesians 2:10
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Zechariah 2:8
For thus says the LORD of hosts, “After glory He has sent me against the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you, touches the apple of His eye.

Psalm 17:8
Keep me as the apple of the eye; Hide me in the shadow of Your wings.