Overwhelming victory in your family.
Overwhelming victory in your finances.
Overwhelming victory in your school.
Overwhelming victory in your mind.
Overwhelming victory in your city.
Overwhelming victory is yours through Christ, who loves you.
You aren’t defeated or inadequate. See yourself as strong, bold, and courageous. One of my favorite scriptures is Philippians 4:13: “I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” Our confidence in the battles we face isn’t self-talk or hype; it’s power, grace, and strength that comes from Christ.
Let’s Pray
Jesus, I declare Your victory. I declare Your victory over every battle I’m facing. In faith, I declare victory even before I see victory. Living God, I thank You that Your work is the work of deliverance, breakthrough, and healing. Help me see the work that You are already doing and partner with You in it. Let a value revolution rise up in my heart to deepen my trust in You so I will live more freely into the identity You’ve given me. May this same value revolution rise up in the hearts of all Your daughters today so we will change our cities and this world for Your glory! Your kingdom come. Amen.
7 Give Me Also
Before I gave my life to Christ, I didn’t understand my value or worth. I didn’t know that I was royal and had an inheritance. I settled and made dating decisions that showed I didn’t see myself the way Jesus saw me.
Once I started going to church, learning what Jesus said about me, and seeing godly, loving relationships around me, the lies I had believed about my worth and what I deserved fell away little by little. I started to see myself the way Jesus saw me. I started to realize that I was settling and putting up with unacceptable behavior from guys. I even stopped dating for a season and learned to be content with just me and Jesus. He literally rewrote what I was looking for in a future husband and taught me to fall in love with Him and see Him as my first love. Then when I started to date again, I had standards, I had healthy accountability, and I knew my confidence and worth were defined not by my relationship but by Him.
We are God’s daughters. We have an inheritance. We have a birthright.
Paul wrote in Galatians 4:7, “Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child.” So guess what? It’s time to stop acting like a slave. You’re an heir. Sometimes we have to remind one another of that.
It can seem easier to go back to living in bondage to our old ways of thinking. But Christ came so that we could live in freedom as part of our inheritance, and who the Son sets free is free indeed.[1] I love this truth.
An inheritance is a birthright, a portion, and a heritage. As God’s royal daughter, you have an inheritance in Christ. In the Bible, the birthright was usually given to the oldest son. The one who received it was honored with a double share of his father’s inheritance.[2] The birthright also included certain rights and privileges, as well as responsibilities. Since we are believers in Christ, we are given privileges because we share in Christ’s inheritance. As adopted daughters of God, we get to be treated as firstborns and heirs.
Here’s an example from the Bible where the older son sold his birthright to his younger brother.[3] Let me introduce you to two parents, Isaac and Rebekah, who had twin sons, Jacob and Esau. Isaac loved Esau, and Rebekah loved Jacob. Scripture tells us, “One day when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau arrived home from the wilderness exhausted and hungry” (Genesis 25:29).
We all do crazy stuff when we’re exhausted and hungry. I get hangry, so I always have snacks in my purse. I started snacking eighteen years ago when I was pregnant with Parker, and I just haven’t stopped. I might be eating a protein bar or nuts, because I carry a picnic in my purse.
Esau asked Jacob to give him some of the stew he was cooking. Jacob saw an opportunity and told him that he would give him some stew if he sold his birthright. So Esau did. And that’s how we see that Esau didn’t understand his birthright, because if he had, he wouldn’t have sold it for some stew.
Sometimes we don’t understand our birthright as God’s daughters. We don’t understand that we have a purpose and an inheritance. So we trade our Christ-given inheritance for a metaphorical bowl of stew. Esau was the firstborn, so a double portion of the inheritance was coming to him. As heiresses to Christ’s inheritance, we have access to every single resource from God our Father’s estate. It’s so important that we grasp the extent of our inheritance, because once we do, we walk with a different confidence. We don’t sell ourselves short for a bowl of soup. Let me ask you, What’s your bowl of soup? What are you settling for in your life?
Esau was tired and hungry when he came back from the wilderness. When we’re tired and hungry, our guard is down. We settle for what’s not best, and we make decisions based on feeling like God has forgotten about us or He’s not answering our prayers. Esau didn’t value the inheritance that his father was preparing to give him. If he had known what was waiting for him, if he had truly valued his inheritance, he would have said, “You can keep that soup.” We need to value our inheritance as God’s daughters. When temptation comes our way or when we’re discouraged, we think, I’m just going to camp out in this mediocre relationship. I’m going to camp out in these negative thought patterns. I’m not going to believe God for the purposes and plans that He has for my life. But you know what? Girl—you’re just tired. Put the soup down.
We don’t want to give up anything too freely, because our lives, our value, our worth, our purpose, and our future were bought with a price. Christ gave His life to make it possible for us to be heirs. Every single attribute of heaven belongs to us. We have a double portion of inheritance waiting for us if we would just believe it, walk into it, and receive it. I think some of us cling to old mindsets because of our familial background. Some of us have even been taught to limit or devalue ourselves. But God says, “I have more for you.” You have an inheritance coming. Wait. You may be hungry now, and you may be tired, but wait.
There’s another story involving Esau, Jacob, their parents, and an inheritance.[4] Rebekah, their mother, was once barren, so she and Isaac would cry out to God to become pregnant, believing Him for a miracle. Finally, she was blessed with their twin boys, Jacob and Esau. Her dream of being a mother was fulfilled. You would think that the story goes on to recount how Rebekah served her family and the kingdom of God faithfully because her dream came true, but that wasn’t the case. Sometimes, in our desperation, we cry out to God to intervene, and He does, but then we just act foolish. We’ve all been there, myself included. Well, our girl Rebekah didn’t understand her power and influence as a royal daughter.
Genesis 27 tells how Rebekah’s husband, Isaac, was getting ready to pass away. His eyes had become dim and he could barely see. Isaac was planning on blessing Esau before he died. But Rebekah overheard their conversation and manipulated Isaac into giving the second son the firstborn’s blessing. Many women and men are guilty of this. I’m just going to be real. Sometimes we manipulate a situation because we’re hungry, we’re tired, we’re tired of waiting, or we think God has forgotten us. We then play the puppeteer. We maneuver people and situations into our desired positions so that we can determine the outcome, because we don’t trust God.
This is what happened with Rebekah. God was faithful to her. She cried out to Him and said, “Please give me a child!” God then blessed her with twins, but she still decided to not trust Him anymore and instead manipulated the situation to get what she wanted. She convinced her son Jacob to dress up like Esau so that he could receive Isaac’s blessing. Rebekah had to take some skin from a goat and tie it to her son’s arms and neck, which means she had probably been thinking of this plan for a while. She knew her husband was getting old, and her actions were well thought out.
After Jacob got dressed in Esau’s clothes and tied on goatskin so he was as hairy as his brother, Rebekah gave him a delicious meal that she had cooked, which included freshly baked bread. Basically, Rebekah said, “Let’s make a meal for your dad. He can barely see. We’re going to disguise you and cook his favorite meal so you can get the blessing.” Jacob gave the meal to his father. And Isaac, sensing that something was up, asked, “Who are you—Esau or Jacob?” (verse 18). Jacob replied with a lie, which was a practice his mother had taught him.
Do you ever cook somebody their “favorite meal” by writing them a message or buying them a present so you can get what you want? That’s manipulation. God has a plan for our lives, and we don’t have to play puppet master to get it. We don’t have to play God. He knows that you want that man, that job, that house. He knows that you want freedom in a certain area of your life. We don’t have to play God like Rebekah did.
The antidote for manipulation is surrender.
If Rebekah had surrendered the desires that she had for her kids, she wouldn’t have stepped into manipulation. But because she did, her family was divided. Esau got angry with his brother. He wanted to kill him, so Jacob ran away—all because Rebekah manipulated Isaac into blessing her favorite son. Her actions broke Isaac’s heart just like we break the Father’s heart when we use the gifts that He has given us to bring about our own will. Instead, we can surrender and say, “God, You know that I want x, y, and z. You know that I want that job. You know that I want to dream again. You know that I’m believing You for healing and for restoration. I trust You. I trust that as I fall back, You are going to catch me. I want to fix my situation, because that’s my comfort zone, but I know that You fixed it on the cross. So I don’t want to manipulate anymore. I’m going to surrender it to Your will.”
If we can grab hold of this message, we can change our cities.
If we can grab hold of this message, we can change our cities. Do you know how many junior high girls need to hear that they are royalty with an inheritance? Do you know how many college girls are starving themselves trying to fit into a certain size because they don’t get this truth? If we can understand that we possess an inheritance, we can literally start a value revolution in your city, my city, and beyond. If we start being women who walk in our inheritance, men will treat us correctly. They won’t try stupid stuff, because they’ll realize that we are God’s daughters and His heirs. That’s what I love about so many of the men at my home church, Shoreline City. They come early, they stay late, and they serve with humility everywhere in the house because we’re raising up a generation of women and men who understand that women are royal daughters. We can walk taller and stand with confidence because Jesus paid the debt of sin for us. We’re not limiting ourselves. We have potential. We have purpose. We have value. There’s no need to settle.
God offers us more than what we settle for. He’s a “more than” God. But we give up sometimes. We don’t believe that we are heiresses to God’s fortune. So we just run in place, not making progress in our lives. The Enemy wants us to settle and run in place, locked out of the promises of God.
As I’ve shared previously, I settled for the wrong guys in college. My only prerequisites for a guy were that he be handsome and a Christian. My heart was broken so many times because I kept running in circles by dating the wrong guys. But if I had known that the inheritance of my husband, Earl McClellan, was waiting, I wouldn’t have settled.
Because of Christ, we have blessings waiting for us if we don’t grow faint or weary. If we will just say, “God, I’m going to stick this out. I’m going to trust You on the hard and good days. I’m going to trust in the power of the blood that Jesus shed on the cross. I’m not going to settle. I’m going to wait until You provide every single thing that I need.”
So I want to tell you that God has a blessing for your dreams. He has a blessing for your career. He has a blessing for your family, for your future, and for your relationships. He has prepared an inheritance for you.[5] You just have to step into it and receive it. Thank God I didn’t camp in bad relationships. If I had, I would’ve still been dating this guy named Tony. Oneka and Tony. That combination doesn’t even sound right, because it’s supposed to be Oneka and Earl. I’m so glad that I said, “God, You have a plan and purpose for me. I’m surrendering my singleness to You. I’m going to stop dating all these boys, and I’m going to trust You.” God will provide the right school and the right job for you. He will heal you. He will give you visions and fulfill your dreams. Wait for your inheritance, because it’s coming. Once you receive it, you can wake up the other women in your community that are asleep to the plans and purposes of God and say, “He gave me an inheritance, and He’ll do the same for you.” Or say, “Let’s wait for our inheritance together and encourage one another in the wait.” We’re a sisterhood and we’re better together. We value one another. We speak life into one another.
God has an inheritance for you.
While Earl was on a mission trip, God told him that I was for him. We had the same group of friends in college, and I had a crush on him. Everyone was telling him that he needed to go for me, but he was focusing on basketball, school, and Jesus and didn’t want to be distracted by any relationship. Earl then went on this mission trip. He was in India, crying out to God on the country’s behalf, but while he was praying, a picture of me kept coming into his mind. At first, he thought Satan had planted the image because he was on a mission trip, so he rebuked the thought. Then he got a clue and realized, Oh, wait. This is God, and He’s telling me I’m supposed to pursue this girl.
While he was in India, he also went to take a shower in the first stall that he saw, and there sat a bucket of freezing cold water. He poured ladles of it on himself, trying to take some kind of shower. About ten minutes later, a friend of his walked by with steam coming off his body, claiming to have had the best shower. Earl said, “Wait a second—you don’t look like you used that bucket with the cold water.”
His friend Teddy said, “Just two stalls down, there’s a shower with a showerhead and hot water.”
What is just two stalls down from you? Some of us have a small mindset and believe that God’s favor and blessings will fit in a ladle that we’ll need to dump on ourselves when, only two stalls down, our inheritance is waiting for us. Two stalls down, our blessing is coming. Two stalls down, our miracle is coming. Let’s stop settling for pouring cold water on ourselves.
