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Self-worth. What does it mean? What is it's divine definition?
God laid the following on my heart....
When we commit our lives to Christ, we need to believe Him when He says we are worth what He did for us. We can only find worth in and through Him.
When we struggle with self-worth and we say we are not worth anything, we call God a liar. There are so many reasons that we do not believe we are worth what God says we are worth; it is usually a struggle because of our own fear, pride, or inability to forgive oneself.
Jesus knows what we are worth. How does He know? Because He who was worth everything….God’s Son…came even lower than our sinful level of worth. Our sin makes us unapproachable and worthless to God.
But what about Someone Who was the greatest that came down and became the least to us….and to God? Is this not what happened with Jesus died for us??
Tell me what is more worthless, someone dying who deserved it or Someone dying Who did not deserve it but chose it?
“The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” (Matthew 20:16)
(John 10-17-18) Jesus chose to make Himself worth-less than each one of us by becoming the most despised of all creation; God Himself even turned away because of the filth of sin.
Because God turned away from Him, Jesus understands what those in hell will feel like. The ultimate torment of those in hell will be that they will fully know that God turned His Face away from for all eternity. Because of the sin that Jesus carried on Him, God turned His Face away from Christ His last moments.
Not only did His physical body die but His soul did too that fateful day.
He, the Son of God, who was in the position of the greatest….became less than we…and became less than the least….so that through His Sacrifice, we would live.
Not only did He come to give us life but He came to give it to us more abundantly. (John 10:10) Only He Who knew life at its most un-abundant place, rejected totally of God, can truly offer us abundant joyful life
Knowing Him does not stop when we receive salvation; that is just the beginning. He died for us so that we could seek and know Him every second of everyday. Through knowing Him do we begin to know ourselves.
Until He saves us, we can do nothing and therefore we can do nothing of worth. (John 15:5) Yet through Him, we can do all things. (Matthew 9:26)
He...God...The Absolute Standard of Truth or Lie... Who became the most worthless has the right to say who has and who does not have worth. So next time you think that you are a worthless failure beyond all hope, listen to the One Who became the MOST worthless and the MOST hopeless and re-evaluate your thoughts and put your trust in Him.
How much does God Love us??
How easy is it to go around and say, "I am a good person."?
How easy it is to say, "I know I sinned but I never committed a horrific sin with horrific intent as someone like Hitler or Charles Manson are famous for"?
How easy is it to say, "Yes, I told a 'white lie' because I didn't want them to have hurt their feelings"?
Or yeah, "I used God's name in vain but it was really not that big of a deal b/c I was so surprised!!"?
Or to say or feel, "Well so and so used to be my closest friend. I have been so nice to them. I was there for them no matter what. They said they were my friend and then they turned around and betrayed me and hurt me more deeply than anyone I know. I see no reason to forgive them. I feel nothing but hatred and resentment towards them. They deserve nothing but my utter contempt and disdain"?
None of these experiences are uncommon to humanity; all of us have experienced these emotions or feelings at one time or another.
How often were we told that we are "supposed to forgive them" because "God expects us to?"
Those of us who do or do not grow up in church have heard Jesus mentioned in some way, good or bad. The story of Him dying for us is repeated in so many different ways and so often that it is easy to lose the true significance of the story. When you hear it over and over, it becomes just another religious tale that is easy to take for granted.
The story we usually hear is that, "God died for me because He loved me." We hear the story so often that we unknowingly come to think of His death "as some quick, painless, it is over fast" kind of death. Even though we know that He was crucified, it just does not seem to register what that means or how that method of death was carried out.
Personally speaking, the full impact of that statement never fully sunk in. It was more like a fictional story of God Who was up in heaven somewhere. The full truth and the ramifications of Jesus' death never came across as a reality but more of a neutral, idealistic, thought.
I am very ashamed to admit this b/c looking back, I cannot believe that I took such a reality, no matter how many times I had heard it, for granted and did not give it a second thought.
I never fully trusted in Jesus; I only trusted in Him with half of my heart of less. I always wanted to be in control of my life. I wanted to have the "final say" in how those around me would react and how they would be affected by my life.
I claimed to be a Christian.
Sure.
But when it came down to it all, I did not trust God to take care of my life. I did not trust Him to handle situations in which people who had hurt me; I wanted total control of those situations. I wanted to make sure that they understood how much they hurt me and that they make amends.
I did not trust God to "handle" my life or to follow His guidance in my daily decisions. I did NOT want to give up the control of my life to God. Without acknowledging it to myself, I had the unspoken attitude of "It is my life, should I NOT have the final say over what happens and how things turn out???"
When I was betrayed, I reasoned, why should I forgive the person who so deeply wounded and betrayed me?
I often asked myself, "Why is it wrong for me to feel resentment and anger towards them?"
My rationale was along the lines of :
"They hurt *me* I was a friend to them"
TO
"*They* were wrong b/c they betrayed *me* when I was there for *them*! They are the ones that need to make amends; not me. I am innocent."
I knew that God said to forgive them. I felt like God did not understand how much they hurt me. I thought if I did what God said and forgave them then that will make what they did to me "alright". I felt like I would receive no retribution whatsoever from the offending person.
Even harder to admit is that I thought that since "God could not truly understand what I went through, then how can He expect me to forgive them?!
"In my day to day life," I reasoned,
"I try to be a good person to everyone. I go to church."
"I help those in need."
"I listen when a friend needs to talk."
"I am there for my family. I love my children. I do everything I can for them."
I felt justified in not forgiving them b/c I felt like God should avenge me since I was a good, decent person. After all, *they*are the ones who hurt me, so why should He expect *me* to forgive *them*?
I have been and will no doubt be there so many times I will lose count by the time it is all said and done.
God began dealing with my heart on this attitude. The biggest thing that I struggled with is the fact that I always felt like I was "doing my best" and that "I was a good person" and that God appreciated that.
If someone betrayed me or hurt me, then I felt like since I was a "good person" most of the time that I "deserved" the right to insist that God change THEM and avenge ME.
Had I not been a good person to this other individual? Had I not told them that I cared about them? Had I not shared part of myself with them that I considered very sacred and very dear to me?? Then they hurt me, upset me, or betrayed me."
This scenario, sadly, has been played out in my mind many, many times towards one person or another during my lifetime.
For most of my life, I had no problem with my conscience when I felt this way about someone. I felt like I was a "good person", that they were the ones that needed to change, not me.
Other people in my life, Christians or not, have felt the same way about those who had offended them. As a result, I felt like it was perfectly normal to feel and act this way. It was so common that nothing seemed wrong with this attitude.
For this website, I researched several medical documentations, historical accounts, and Biblical commentary on the reality of what Jesus did for me and you when He gave His life for us.
My sins caused Him to be whipped until He was covered in blood, He was spit upon, beaten, brutalized, insulted, blasphemed, and then nailed to a cross and left there to hang until He died.
The Bible is very clear that He chose to do this because He loved us. He understood exactly what He was to endure but was willing to endure it so that I and you could be reconciled with God.
By the time He was crucified, He was a bloody, torn, and beaten semblance of a human being. His Face and Body were so brutally tortured and assaulted that He ceased to be recognizably human. It is clearly mentioned (Isaiah 52:14) that that people were astonished, shocked, overwhelmed, and disbelieving at His appearance. No other man on the face of the Earth came close to enduring what Jesus endured that day.
He then asked God to forgive those who had so marred Him that day "because they did not know what they were doing." They thought that they were justified in what they were doing to Him. They did not realize Who He was or what He was allowing until after He had died. (Luke 23:34)
He willingly gave Himself so that we could be reconciled with God without sin. (John 10: 14-18) He took our place and died the death that my sins, our sins, all of humanity's sins deserved. He well-understood what He would endure and bear when He took our place on the cross. He willingly gave Himself for us because He loved us and wanted to forgive us for our sins.
When faced with the undeniable truth of what He endured how can I ever feel like I am a "good" person [without Him in my life] again???
The only thing that so called "goodness" accomplished was separating me from God without any hope of redemption. My only hope of redemption came through what Jesus endured for me and you that day.
For all of us that think that God does not understand what it feels like to be betrayed, rejected, hurt, tortured, neglected, and insulted, we need to seriously reconsider our stance. Jesus was betrayed in every conceivable way, endured every kind of hurt, every kind of betrayal, every kind of loneliness or abandonment, every painful moment that you and I could ever remotely dream of. To understand what Jesus endured because of our sin is to understand that God completely empathizes with all pain.
How arrogant was I to think that I did not have to forgive someone?
How arrogant, self-righteous, and full of pride that I dared to think I "deserved" anything from God or the other person?
How self-deluded was I to think that I "needed God to change them and not me"?
How long have been I been blinded to how utterly unrighteous I am??
Was my sin or self-righteousness truly better than those who offended me?
Did Jesus make an exception in my case b/c I was so good and so victimized that my sin was excluded from humanity's collective sin??
NO!!!
I am ashamed and overwhelmed with disgust at my own "so called" self-righteousness and unworthiness. I am sickened by the level of pride and arrogance that I once claimed were true marks of a Christian life. Yet in spite of our abysmal failings, God loved each of us enough to allow His Son to die for us.
Understanding this brings us to another point that is worthy of discussion. What is true forgiveness? How do we truly forgive someone who hurts us? Does forgiveness excuse what they did to us and offer us no retribution for their actions?
True love and true forgiveness can only come by believing in the love that God had for me and you when He died for us.
We are not capable of utterly, truly, and completely forgiving our fellow man. We do not possess the capacity. We try and try to forgive them but yet we are not able to. We cannot truly forgive and love, unless we do it through God. We have no ability whatsoever within ourselves to forgive and love in a way that is pleasing to God.
We must completely yield these feelings to God in order to truly forgive and love our fellowman...and ourselves. Only through His mercy, His Love, and ultimately His Forgiveness....all which were demonstrated on the cross…..can we truly forgive our fellowman. Only then can we be truly free.(John 8:36)
Instead of trusting God with all of the hurt and pain and betrayal, we take matters into our own hands and decide that we are better than we truly are and that we do not have to forgive the other person.
Forgiving does not make what that person did to you "okay". It does not excuse the other person for what they did. It does not mean that there will not be retribution at some point for the offended party. God did not command us to forgive so that we would be at the mercy of the ones who offended us, but rather, to be free of the burdens of betrayal that we carry with us.
God desires to set us completely free of those burdens....meaning that when we turn those cumbersome burdens over to Jesus then He carries our burdens; He wants to do this for us. He tells us to come to Him with our heavy burdens and He will give us rest. (Matthew 11:28)
When He carries our burdens, we are truly and completely "free indeed." (John 8:36)
The point of forgiveness is to reconcile you and God. True forgiveness will heal you and heal the pain inflicted on your heart. Forgiveness in its simplest definition means to "release" the pain, bitterness, or hatred that you feel for another person or situation entirely to God. When you give that situation in its entirety to God, then you are allowing God total control in the outcome of the situation.
Forgiveness does not always have to involve the other person being sorry for what they did. The other person may not be sorry they did what they did. They may not even understand how they hurt you. The offending person, in some cases, may fully understand why and how they hurt you but would rather be malicious instead of seek reconciliation with you.
Forgiveness rarely happens at all at once. It usually goes in stages. Some hurts take several years to fully give to God, some take a moment.
If your heart is truly committed to forgiveness but it is a deep hurt or betrayal, then God will slowly shine the Light of His Forgiveness on those parts of your heart that are hurt. His light will heal those parts of your heart. The more you are healed, the more you trust Him. And the more you trust Him, the more of the hurt that you are willing to forgive Him.
Personally, I believe forgiveness is made up of 2 stages. I believe that most forgiveness has to begin with oneself. One of the main reasons, I believe, that it is so hard to forgive others or to entrust our grudges to God is because we fail to forgive ourselves.
In Mark 12:29 – 31 (NAS) the Bible says, "Jesus answered, "…….. THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.' "The second is this, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
This verse demonstrates the 2 levels of forgiveness. The first part of forgiveness means entrusting the matter fully to God and trusting Him to take care of it. The second part of forgiveness means to not only yield the burdens to Him but to allow Him to continue to totally and completely heal our hearts from the pain inflicted on them.
As mentioned earlier, in order to truly forgive to the uttermost, we must lay all offenses against us and the baggage of bitterness, anger, hatred etc at the feet of Jesus. We must trust Him as sincerely and as completely as we genuinely are able to handle the situation and allow Him to completely free us. The more we trust Jesus with these situations, the more that we truly demonstrate the love for God that He commands in Scripture.
Truly trusting Jesus means to truly know Jesus. Not to know of Him…but rather to know Him as a personal God Who loves us so much that He wants to carry those burdens so that we do not have to. Truly trusting and truly following Jesus means that we are loving Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
To willingly surrender our burdens to Him is the first stage of forgiveness. At this point, God then begins to heal our hearts from the scars incurred by carrying the baggage of unforgiveness around in our lives. The second part of the verse above says that we are to love our neighbor like we love ourselves.
So often when we have a hard time forgiving someone, it is because we have not managed to forgive ourselves. We often blame ourselves for what happened, what went wrong, go through a huge list of "I should have done this or that", I was so stupid for allowing this to happen, if I had only listened etc… It is easier, it seems to allow God to carry those burdens and even to forgive someone who has wronged us, but to forgive ourselves is often the hardest part of forgiveness.
You cannot truly love your neighbor or forgive your neighbor….unless you love yourself and forgive yourself through God's power. Only through His power are we truly able to forgive ourselves.
It is really a matter of pride and lack of faith that makes it hard for us to forgive ourselves. We would rather berate and bash ourselves for all we should have done instead of entrusting it to God and allowing Him to heal us. So often we would rather allow ourselves to go on a pity party and punish ourselves for our past.
This attitude of being a self-martyr is something that I have been guilty of so many times I lost count. God has really dealt with me about this part of my life. So often, when I would do something to someone, I would replay the incident in my mind time and time again. I would go through the list of what ifs and how bad I was for doing what I did. If someone hurt me, then I would also blame myself for what they had done. Surely it was something I did right?? Surely I did something that made them do this to me.
I did this so often that I never really gave much attention to it. It has been a part of me for so long that I never realized what a hindrance this attitude was to healing power of God. It felt like the more I berated myself and put myself down, the more I thought I could fix the hurt that I had inflicted or had inflicted on me. I believe God has made it crystal clear to me that this attitude is really one that is full of pride and is just another way for self rather than God to control the situation.
Instead of focusing so much effort on berating myself, or feeling sorry for myself, I should be focusing that effort on allowing God to heal me and work through me to forgive myself and others. When we wallow in self-pity and emotionally whip ourselves, it is nothing short of idolatry.
Idolatry?
Instead of expending the effort we invest in sadistic behaviors of self-punishment on ourselves, we need to be focusing these efforts on acknowledging and trusting God. If we insist on using time, energy, and placing our faith in our own self-abuse rather than trust God to determine how the situation should be handled, are we not worshipping the act of self-punishment rather than God?
Are we not placing the faith and trust in ourselves before we place it in God? Are we not glorifying our own pity and blame and trying to control and resolve the issue within ourselves…..rather than allow God to control and resolve the issue like we are supposed to do.
Our devotion to wallowing in a pit of self-hatred is an act of pride. We want to feel bad about ourselves. We don't want to be healed b/c that would mean that we could not blame ourselves. In short, we want to be in control of the situation and we want to decide how the situation should be handled.
We do not want to leave it at God's feet. We insist on being in total control. In doing so we are placing the idol of pride before God. We are making our pride and self-abasement the ultimate focus of our efforts. When we do not make God the ultimate focus of our efforts and attentions, then we are placing an idol before Him.
Like I mentioned earlier, we cannot truly forgive or love our fellowman unless we love truly love God with all that is within us. When we love God with all of our heart, then and only then, can we truly love ourselves. Then and only then can we truly forgive ourselves and realize that God did not condemn us to a life full of blindness, hurt, self-deprecation, and unfulfillment.
We do not possess the ability to truly forgive our fellowman or ourselves unless the love of God changes us and gives us a new heart. God must be the One Who performs this change in us. Only through Him can any change be permanent and lasting. He promises He will create in us a new heart. (Ezekiel 36:26). It is with this "new" heart that we are truly able to forgive and love ourselves which results in us loving our fellowman.
Our new heart allows us to not only love God with everything in us, but also allows us to love ourselves and be at peace with ourselves by putting Him first. When we reach this state of fulfillment, we then are able to extend His Love on our fellowman. Suddenly, we see others in a different light. Suddenly, we see that even though others hurt us that it is not about us but rather about them. The new heart God gives us makes us want to pray for those that hurt us, have compassion on those that use us, and ask God to forgive those that betray us.
I cannot say it enough. ONLY through God and the new heart that He gives us can we accomplish these divine goals. I have tried for so long and have wasted so much time trying to force myself to forgive someone who wronged me…or blamed myself for what they did and use every other method of deluded self-control to rectify the situation….only to fail. When I would fail, I would end up blaming myself and/or the other person. This is a vicious cycle that only God can break.
God allowed His Son Jesus to die for us on a cross so that we could be the best people we can be. He died for us so that we can experience true freedom and true liberation that can only be attained through the Blood of Jesus. Only through His Blood can we be fully reconciled to God and have a heart that seeks to serve Him with all that we have. Only through Him can we love ourselves, have a purpose for our lives, and have the close personal relationship with God that we were created to have.
Without Him, I or you cannot do anything. We cannot love, forgive, or have a purpose in this life. (John 15:5)
I give all credit for any "revelations" that I have written about to God. Only through Him, did I even have a remote concept of how depraved, alone, and hopeless my life was. Only by His Grace and Mercy have I been able to humbly post what minor events have happened in my life with the wish that something I experienced or went through….and revealing how God healed me from that situation….will help someone else.
Thank You for reading and God Bless.
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