Where Is Your Worth Anchored?

“No matter how athletic, slim, handsome or pretty, intelligent, well-read, respected, connected, funny, wealthy, or religious we are, if we anchor our worth in these things instead of in the smile of God over us, these things will eventually wreck us. The only esteem that won’t abandon us is the esteem given to us by Jesus. Because only in Jesus are we fully known and always loved, thoroughly exposed yet never rejected. Only Jesus will repeatedly forgive us when we fail Him. Only Jesus will declare His affection for us when we are at our very worst as well as at our very best. Only in Jesus can we return to that blessed Edenic state of being naked and without shame. The quest for self-esteem is, deep down, an attempt to silence negative verdicts that assault us from the outside and from within. In Jesus, the Second Adam, the negative verdicts from the outside and from within are made powerless. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Him. In Jesus, we no longer have anything to fear, prove, or hide. There’s no need to self-medicate. There’s no need to self-promote or to drop names at parties. There’s no need to compare or compete. There’s no need to wear ourselves down by chasing career or applause or respect or being able to fit into a size four. We are not called to be perfectly awesome. We are called to be imperfectly faithful, because we have been perfectly loved, liberated, and highly esteemed by the Most High. It is said that Buddha’s dying words were, ‘Strive without ceasing.’ Jesus’ dying words were, ‘It is finished.’ Give me Jesus. Our souls are glory-vacuums, fearfully and wonderfully made for an Esteem greater than self. And He esteems us much. The One who made the galaxies with His breath has said so.” Scott Sauls

“It’s really your ugly pride that makes you afraid. Just bow in humility — and you’ll rise up in courage. It’s only pride’s hunger for perfection that paralyzes a heart. It’s being enslaved to perfectionism that keeps us enslaved to fear. Pride is fear’s father — and pride is the kin to all cowards. Courage for the impossible can only be found in the possibility of humility. Because ‘This is the one God esteems: he who is humble...’ (Isaiah 66:2). Courage lives in the heart of the lowly... those who can embrace humility and the possibility of imperfection ... because that needy place is the place we meet God. Humility births courage and is brother to the brave.” Ann Voskamp

“Reader, put these few following questions to thine own heart, as in the presence of God; if thou canst answer them affirmatively, doubt not thy real interest in him, and in his great salvation: Is the Lord Jesus Christ precious to me, as he is to all that believe? Once he was to me without form or comeliness, and I saw no beauty in him; is he now to me the chiefest of ten thousand, yea, altogether lovely? Do I behold an infinite amiableness and glory in his person, a transcendent excellency in his righteousness, an inexhausted fullness in his grace, and a heaven of happiness in his love? Do I esteem him above every name, love him above every creature and thing, and value an interest in him before ten thousand worlds? Is the language of my soul, ‘None but Christ! None but Christ! Whom Have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee?’” K. H. Von Bogatzky

“God's grace is free. It is unmerited favor from heaven, poured out on His children. No one deserves it, but we should all desire to walk boldly in it.” Michael Youssef