"Let your adornment be the inner self with the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in God's sight." ~1 Peter 3:4 (NRSV)
It's the quickest, most effective way to a depressed and debilitating result. Comparisons with others, or deriding ourselves for all manners of failure, rejection or embarrassment, are the prime vehicles to questioning our worthiness, as is dabbling again, devoid of God, in past or present guilt, shame or sin.
We can be our own worst enemy when it comes to doubting our intrinsic worth. We quickly forget that our worthiness has been defined, long before we were born.
OUR WORTHINESS HAS BEEN DEFINED
Let's not forget who bought us; if we believe Christ, we are one in him; we are won to him. We are hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3).
An unfathomably high price was paid for us - Jesus died so our sin would not be a barrier excluding us from fellowship with the Father. Sometimes we need to be reminded of this.
Worth is a thing no longer in contention. Not one single person alive, or dead for that matter, is of less worth than Christ dying for their sin. That is a concept so marvellous that we could consider it every conscious minute for the rest of our lives and still not comprehend the fullness and magnitude of it.
No matter what we do or don't do in this life, we are unable to shake or de-shackle from this fact. This fact is beyond all our deeds; what we think and say; or even how worthy we think we are or aren't.
God has defined our worthiness by the measure of Christ.
We cannot argue with the logic of God, for if we do, our defiance of God just leaves us confused and lacking in spiritual sense.
ACCEPTING THE WORK, ON OUR BEHALF, OF JESUS' OBEDIENCE ON THE CROSS
If we can put thoughts of our unworthiness to bed, seriously settling for the inherent worthiness in the glory of being human under God, we begin to live a more spiritually peaceful life - a peace that transcends our understanding.
At the simple transactions of recognising God's grace we are afforded a simple blessing: the knowledge that, because of what God has achieved, we are worthy.
When we accept the work of the cross, the obedience of Jesus to the Father's timing for that once-for-all-time redemptive act, the record of history in the Bible, and these by faith, we do feel worthy and we know our worthiness.
Accept the work of the cross. Accept the unique worth implicit in being you.
© 2012 S. J. Wickham.
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