Sample Chapter: Do I Understand My Value
(And Appreciate Who I am in Christ?)
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ONE OF THE saddest victories the Enemy can have over a believer is to convince the believer he or she has no value. How could we count the untold millions of Christians who felt God couldn’t use them and thus failed to take life by the horns and accomplish their God-given dreams? Today we will shatter this lie and restore the truth of our eternal value in Christ Jesus. David George put it best: “Noah was drunk, Isaac was old, Leah was ugly, Moses stuttered, Gideon was afraid, Sampson was a womanizer, Rahab was a prostitute, Jonah was a runner, David was an adulterer, Jacob was a deceiver, and Lazarus was dead!” The point is that regardless of your past or your limitations, God can do great things through you just as He did through these biblical stalwarts. So I have to admit that for all my shortcomings, surely I have more promise than a dead man! And so do you, whether you’re nine or eighty-nine. We will find no shortage of reasons to doubt our worth, so let’s acknowledge them and get them out of the way:
There. I’ve listed the major reasons why people lack proper self-worth, and I’ll wait for a moment while you pencil in anything you’d like to add to the list. But let’s get one thing straight: nothing cancels or reduces your value to God. Jesus would still take a bullet for you. Go ahead and list every real and perceived fault. God will say, “That’s okay. You’re still My child, and I love you more than the universe itself.” So why is it so difficult to accept the fact that God loves us? Part of the reason is that we have been conditioned by a performance oriented society that favors us only to the degree that we’ve made achievements society glorifies. That’s fine when comparing a lazy worker to a highly productive one; hopefully the productive worker will receive the promotion or recognition for a job well done. However, when the topic turns to our intrinsic value to God, achievements mean nothing. Jesus would still take a bullet for you.” God said in Matthew 3:17, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” The Message renders the verse this way: “This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.” Now, let’s put this verse in context: how many life-changing sermons had Jesus preached up to this point? How many sick people had He healed? How many dead had He raised to life? How many ministries had He spawned? How many churches had He planted? Not one. Not one. When God spoke these words, He spoke them as a loving father speaks to a son, not because of what Jesus had done but because of who He was. He blessed Jesus out of unconditional love, not because of what God hoped Jesus would accomplish and certainly not because of what anyone else thought of Him. These words of affirmation marked the birth of Jesus’ earthly ministry, not the culmination of a lifetime of preaching. God loves us because we’re His creation, not because of what we’ve done, what we might do, or what we didn’t do. How God must cry whenever someone thinks he or she has nothing to offer! Here is the Creator of the universe, the designer of galaxies, who created all that exists out of nothing. What can the president of the greatest nation on earth do to impress God? What can a thousand Mother Teresas do that would earn God’s respect? We have value in God’s eyes because He created us with inherent value. Just as He placed the stars in the sky, so He placed in us value that will never diminish. Some people need to tape those words to their bathroom mirrors or to the inside of their lockers. When they stand before the mirror each day and loathe themselves for all the wrong reasons, they break God’s heart. On a personal note, I would like to acknowledge that I’ve been blessed with one of the best fathers around. As a child I lacked for nothing and knew Dad loved me and wouldn’t have hesitated to give his life for me, my sister, or my mother. But I also acknowledge the painful realities so many people have experienced at the hands of a cruel taskmaster. So many boys grow up frustrated and angry because their number one goal in life is to please their fathers, yet nothing they do is ever enough. Someone always received a better grade or impressed the coaches more. Tragically, these young men enter adulthood thinking they’re inadequate. As they say, nothing could be further from the truth. God loves you just as you are. If you start a ministry and win a million souls for God, heaven certainly will applaud. But if you try and fail, or if you don’t even try, God’s love for you remains the same forever. Let’s conclude by returning to Jesus’ example. We know that after receiving God’s blessing following His baptism in the Jordan River, Jesus did, in fact, go on to heal, restore, teach, and eventually give His life for the sins of the world. By His power and authority, He rose from the dead on the third day, victorious over sin and death, with a victory that will endure for eternity strong. But if we look at this passage taken from John 14:11–14 (MSG), we find these incredible words straight from Jesus’ mouth: “The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. You can count on it” (emphasis mine). He entrusted His work to someone very specific, supremely confident that this person was full of value, worth, and significance. Who was this person of massive importance, to whom Jesus would dare utter these historic words? You. He meant them for you. |
