Value, Worth and Honor

How do we get our sense of value and worth? Where does it come from? Most Christians say from God but they are not experiencing it themselves. So what's going on?

When we are reborn with Christ and have the Holy Spirit inside of us, the fruit of the spirit comes with that. So, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness, self-control are the evidence that we are full of the Holy Spirit.

With the fruit comes value and worth that only God can deposit in us. It sorta looks like this:

We receive a baseline of value and worth from God. We can choose to receive that truth-piece or with every negative interaction we have, we can choose to let that person or issue to set the stage for how we see ourselves. God is constantly telling us how pleased He is with us and how much he values us. It's up to us to believe it. When we allow someone to dictate our value and worth, we let them play God in our life.

Here's an example:
I get up in the morning and spend time with God, praying and praising Him, reading my Bible. My value is fully intact.
I go to work and have a horrible interaction with a co-worker who accuses me of something. Then I meet a friend for lunch and she tells me I'm not a good friend and never have been.
My choice now is to continue to believe that I have value in God's eyes or I hand my worth over to the two people with whom I had a negative experience.
 I obviously need to see if there is truth in either of the statements the people made and address that but my worth and value do not change.
God's love never leaves and never changes and he always values me and finds my existence and relationship with him worth His time and energy.

As we truly swallow this truth, there is an amazing freedom that opens up. We can be in whatever situation, with whomever, regardless of the circumstances and know we are valued by the Creator of the Universe. Out of this is an honor for ourselves and for God. When honor is intact, we don't have to worry about the boundaries, that's the Holy Spirit's job.

We don't have to worry if someone of the opposite sex will 'hit' on us. We can love homosexuals, bisexuals, transgender people openly without fear. We can enter into the hard situations and do the hard things because we know where our value, honor, and worth originate from.

Too often, we are reaching for value, worth and honor on our own when all we have to do is surrender to the Lord and let him do the work.

Our job is just to receive and believe it.