Do you know your worth? Do you feel you have worth? Do you agree with God about your worth?

Jesus came to bring us gifts. The gifts of life, love, peace, hope, joy, salvation, freedom, worth, and value to name a few.

Do you receive His gifts? Do you accept them as your own? Or are you reluctant to trust His goodness and grace for you?

Often, we do not receive what He offers because we think we are unworthy. I think we do not receive His gifts because we confuse worth and worthy.

Scripture says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) In Romans 3:10 it says, “None is righteous, no, not one.” We are unworthy. Worthy simply means that you are deserving.  We are undeserving. But worthy is not the same as worth. As clear as the Scriptures tell us that we are unworthy, that we’ve fallen short of the glory of God, that we are not deserving, it also tells us that God declares clearly and unequivocally that humanity has worth. Deep and abiding worth.

We miss sight of our worth when we equate being worthy with having worth.  Too often we say we are not worthy, so we do not have worth.

The Good News Jesus came to bring is the message that although you are unworthy, He deems us as having unending value and worth.

The Christmas story reflects the heart and the desire of God to welcome you home as His child. This is a story about God making a declaration, that He loves you, that you have value and worth. 

God loves and cares for us so much that He came and lived among us. God loves and cares for us so much that He died to save us. God loves and cares for us so much that He sent His Holy Spirit to live in us. God wants to be with us!

Not only does God love us, but He also likes us! God says we have value. God says we are enough. God says He has given us all the purpose and meaning we are ever going to have when He made us. God has uniquely gifted each of us. God asks us to love and trust Him.

We tend to tell ourselves a bad story about us. I shared last week about how we tend to allow negative thought loops to play in our heads. We have things that people have said to us over the years that we let play like a tape on repeat in our head. When we are allowing the negative thoughts to occupy our mind, it is hard to believe the Truth of God that we are loved, we are enough, we have worth and value. When I was constantly telling myself I bad story about me I did not feel worthy of God’s love.

You might be thinking but the negative thought is true. We may have proof for the negative thought but if the thought is not beneficial, not helping us, not moving us towards the person we want to be, we must choose to stop thinking it. It does not matter if it is true. And our brains want to prove our thoughts true so if we start thinking positive thoughts, we will begin to see proof for the positives.

We must practice accepting who we are, how we are, where we are in life, and stop telling ourselves we should be different. Fighting against reality gets us no where. We must practice receiving God’s Truth about us. We must practice believing we are loved, we are enough, our worth and value are in Jesus Christ regardless of what anyone else says.

Our worth and value are in Jesus Christ regardless of what anyone else says about us and regardless of what we say about ourselves.

We must choose to believe and trust what God says about us. We must receive His Truth for ourselves and practice believing until we believe.

You are a child of God. You are loved by The King. You are filled with the Holy Spirit. You are filled with grace and power.

It may not feel true at first. Our brain will probably fight against us thinking in a new way. That is because our brain doesn’t like expending energy and wants to stay the way it is.

It is an act of faith to believe that God is for you, that He loves you, that He has filled you will all the purpose and meaning you will ever have, that He gives you gifts and that He gave you gifts to share with the world. We build our faith muscle as we practice believing and trusting.

We must receive His Truth. We must believe it. We must trust it.

We must choose to tell ourselves God’s story about us not a negative faulty world view story.

As we spend time with God, as we get to know Him, as we experience Him, as we practice trusting and believing we will come to see our lives differently. Pray and ask God to give you eyes to see your life as He does.

This Christmas my hope and prayer is that you know your worth and value in Jesus Christ. I hope and pray you agree with Him about who you are and practice trusting Him. My hope and prayer is that you are open to experience the peace and hope and joy that Jesus gives and you receive His goodness, grace, and love for yourself.