We are Valued
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11)
Someone I used to know recently got in contact with me and it had me thinking about my old friends and what had happened back then. I started thinking about the way they treated me, the manipulation, the blackmail, the gossip, and how it had all led me down a self-destructive path. I started to think “This is all I’m worth”, “nobody will ever treat me decently”, “This is what I must do to get people to like me” and “All I want to be is like them”. All the while not knowing that this is not how people should be treated. Until I got away from these so-called friends. When I was separated from them and God led me to a God-fearing group of friends, I realized that my friendship with these girls was not based on a transaction. I didn’t have to buy these friends, I didn’t have to do things for them nor give up my integrity for them. I just had to love them and they loved me. When I look back I see a clear line between my past friendships and my later ones, one of darkness, one of light. One broke me down while the other healed me.
I started to see God’s hand in my life at a time when I didn’t believe He could have been there at all, or if He was, that He would have been so disappointed in me. I saw that He was looking at my hurt and pain and He changed my situation for me. When I thought it was the end for me, He gave me a new beginning. He removed me from a place that not only hurt but traumatized me. And I realized even the people I trusted the most had not protected me when they should have. My friends should have been true but they weren’t. More than 20 years later I see that God had loved me so much that He wanted me to see what true love from a friend looks like. And He had brought me to friends (who are still my friends today) who love and care about me and who don’t put me in compromising situations for their own benefit. God protected me and gave me a gift. That’s the God we serve. This verse sums up what God had done for me in that time of my life “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11)
For so many of us, we have this tendency to believe that we have no value or purpose in this world. It might have started because someone else has told us as much or has made us feel this way with their cruel actions or cruel words towards us. Perhaps they've stolen a piece of our dignity in unspeakable ways. However you came to believe this, please understand that this is a lie. Here's why: "They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen."
Romans 1:25 NIV
In order to understand your value you first need to understand who God is. God is the creator of Heaven and Earth (Gen1:1), He's the most High God (Ps 97:9), there is no other God above Him (Is. 45:5), He is Holy (1 Sam 2:2).
Although we know all this, what does this actually say about Him?
There is nobody ABOVE God. He's the ultimate authority. So if the ultimate authority, the One who has NOBODY above Him, sent the Only Son He has, His most precious Son whom He loved so so dearly, to suffer a humiliating and painful death for YOU... Do you not believe there's a reason for that?
Why would God, who has power beyond our understanding, send His most beloved Son to suffer and die for someone NOT WORTH SAVING?
This must then, only mean that He finds you valuable, and who values what they don't love?
If you are valuable to a God so powerful, One who has no beginning or end, One to whom nothing is impossible, then you must be worth EVERYTHING.
Why believe the created (the fallen) when the Creator finds you of value?
I truly hope you see God’s love in this message and that you look back over your own life and wherever you see that change happened for the better, I hope you believe that it was God who was there in that situation.