This morning the presence of God's Spirit was so strong in my time with Him. I love my time with Him. It makes such a difference in not only my day, but my entire life! I love to listen to anointed worship music during my morning meetings with Him. A worship song started to play proclaiming "You Are Worthy". It was a powerful song that blessed and encouraged me immensely. Certainly, Jesus is worthy to be surrendered to, served, praised, worshiped, exalted, and I could go on all day!
As we ponder His "worthiness", we are often reminded of our "unworthiness". We realize there is nothing we could have done to be worthy of God. The truth is, God chose on His own, to make His love and affection available to us. He did it, not us. "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
God chose to give mankind His gift of grace through Jesus. The Bible says Jesus, who didn't even know sin, became your sin and my sin to make us the righteousness of God, in Himself. Only through Jesus can any of us can ever become acceptable in God's eyes. (See 2 Corinthians 5:21) That's how much God loves the entire world! (See John 3:16)
Let me now interject a different perspective. God looks upon you, saved or unsaved, and says "You are worthy." You are worthy! How do I know that? Because He sent Jesus to be the payment for your sins. Your part and my part is to receive this indescribable gift by trusting our lives completely to Him. We simply begin by believing in Him. God has done His part. He has done it because he loves you and all the world...so much.
When I ponder all this from my own perspective, and marvel over His love for me, I can get a tendency to feel unworthy. This is because I know I could do nothing on my own to be deserving of His love. Lost in my own sin, I was completely helpless. "For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly." (Romans 5:6) But now that I've entrusted everything to Him, and His Spirit lives in me, I also see things from His perspective. I am worthy! He is my righteousness. When the enemy comes and attempts to tell me I am not worthy, I always say, "I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus!" The devil never argues with that because he is quite aware his lunch was eaten by Jesus over 2,000 years ago. He can do nothing to change that.
Be careful that you don't hinder God's activity in your life by thinking you are unworthy of Jesus as a believer. You have been made worthy by the blood and sacrifice of Jesus. This is grace. If you understand grace, you should understand that grace is a whole lot about you. But grace is not from you. Grace is God's choice to love you. The only thing about you and me that caused God to make this choice is His love for us. It's not about anything we have or have not done. You are worthy of Him, because He loves you.
Oftentimes I think about how much I love Connie. And there are times I think about how much she loves me. Sometimes I even wonder why she loves me as much as she does. That's because I wonder about that through Steve's perspective. But I always come back to one thing: Outside of God's grace in healing our marriage, I simply believe her. I believe she loves me for who I am. What a joy! There are things about me she loves, because it's me. I didn't develop a plan of step-by-step plan of action to get Connie to love me. She just loves me because it's me. What a blessing! The love that Connie and I have for each other is based on that unconditional love God has for us. We didn't discover it until we both surrendered our lives to Jesus a long time ago.
You have been made worthy. That's grace. Put your confidence in Jesus. Know that He can and will use you. Yes, you and I are not worthy in ourselves (not one bit) to serve the Living God. But we've been made worthy. Let this be a comfort and an encouragement to you.
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