Know Your worth.

This past weekend I was given the chance to speak at the youth Group at my parents church in Orland and the Topic of self worth was one I gladly took up. I wanted to share some of it here.

Humanity is the Pinnacle of Creation. We are the Corvette stingray next to the 1982 Honda civic that doesn't have tires. We were the thing declared "Very Good" by our creator. More over, as a Professor Said in class one day, "You saints when you wake in the morning, a servant as you go throughout your day, and a beloved child of god as you lay your head down to sleep." We are worth while, we are priceless in the eyes of the only one that matters.

I do not believe that self-esteem is something we get from our understanding of Scripture. Don't get me wrong having a good self image, a good self outlook, and self-respect is a great thing. But a self-love isn't. In 2 Timothy 16 Paul puts "lovers of self" in the same category as "lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, . . . unholy, unloving, . . . brutal haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." Nothing in that list displays anything that mirrors Christ. He was self-less, loved others more than himself, in fact He died for all mankind! It wasn't that He hated Himself, it doesn't seem fit that God could ever hate Himself, because scripture talks about the perfect loving Union that God-head has. It was for love of Himself, and His people that He died. Scripture continues to make statements about not seeking his own good but that of a neighbor (1 Cor. 10:24), about the greatest being the servant not the master (Matt 23:11,12) and how we are to love our neighbor as ourselves! Scripture looks poorly on the prideful arrogant, and self centered, and conversely looks favorably on the self-less, the modest, and the servant.

That being said, that we are to know that we have worth, yet not be prideful it's clear that our worth has nothing to do with us, and everything to do with our creator. It's like the man that has a common car, in fact three of them in his driveway, and a rare car (one of only ten) in his garage covered in trash. For the owner the one that has more worth is the one that is useful to Him. However while this image is decent it's misleading, I have no more worth than the drug addicted murderer sitting in prison, I am simply living in the light of the knowledge of my worth to the Lord.

Image is linked to worth when it comes to humanity. Men must be either Athletic, Handsome, smart or savvy in order to have worth in the world, while women must be attractive, smart, attractive for them to be considered worth it here. It's stupid. It's a lie. Those attributes have no thing to do with worth, and everything to do with Gifts. They are gifts from the Lord, who looks no differently from one to the other. The man who works on a car has no more worth than the one preaching if they are both living and working for the Kingdom. We try to put things in that fill the void of God and we continue to fail. I tried sports, parties, girls and even work to fill that void for years and nothing worked. You can't Fill a God Sized Hole with a Man Sized Answer. Won't work. It's like trying to put a square where a circle should be you'll fail every time. It either won't fill all the space, or you can't fit it in at all. Our Image is like that of God. We are a chosen race! Beloved! Adored! Treasured! Looked highly upon! God Loves us, and when we live in the knowledge of that fact we have an image that no mirror can reflect and nothing can ruin. For Christ makes new our image to the Father.

So, we are beloved, treasured, and wanted. We are image bearers of God. And we Have nothing to do with our self-worth. Our Self-worth is all about Jesus. We can either live in the knowledge of that use, or we can ignore it. Like the man who ignores a million dollar check on his table addressed to him, he can cash it or let sit, or even throw it out. God wants us to only cash it. He wants us to cash in on our worth in Him and he is desperate to keep us from throwing it away. Psalm 139 is full of allusions to how Good God is in our creation!

It talks about being knit together in the womb, how skillfully we were made, how he has cared enough for us to write out our days before our birth. It says that the number of Good thoughts he has about us is more than grains of sand! For each person! He gives us worth. He loves Us. Treasures us. Desires us. He's reached out for us, he came to us when we could not come to him. Surely if we were not something of Value, something of Great Worth he would not have given his son for us. Forget what the Devil says that we're not good enough, that we can't beat our sin, that we can't live in that faith he's a liar a killer and a thief (John 10:10) He's a fool! He sees God face to face and thinks he can be better. That is a fool who knows no wisdom. Wisdom is this, God Loves us and desires us. He will give us the strength to overcome the sin in our lives, he guides us to live by faith. We are the Pinnacle of creation. We are the beloved children of God! We are valued.

Rejoice in the things about ourselves and our situations that we don't like! For they are surely only for our good. That one is hard to swallow for me. But it's true none-the-less. I've seen it so many times. He works everything out so that we can be well and live life abundantly for his Glory.

Know your worth. It's found in God! Nothing Here! No one here! Only by God.
Live knowing your worth. Cash that Check don't let it sit on the table, and surely don't throw it away and sell yourself off for the Lies that the enemy tries to convince you of.
We cannot ever change our worth in the Eyes of God. There is nothing we can do to make God love us Less. So try every day to do everything For Him, in Him and through Him.

God Loves us. End of Story