A fact of life is that every human being struggles with self-worth & acceptance.
Where we choose to put our energy into ensuring we are accepted will be different for us all except there are those who have chosen to put their acceptance in Jesus Christ.
The Bible says this is what God has done for you and me. He has sent Jesus who came to give us acceptance by His GRACE.
What is Grace?
God’s undeserved kindness to me and God’s enabling power in me.
In Romans 3 it informs us:
There’s nobody living right, not even one, nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God. They’ve all taken the wrong turn; they’ve all wandered down blind alleys.
We are all slaves to sin. We are all seeking self-worth because whether we choose to believe it or not we were designed by God to have Him as our self worth and as the verse above tells us we have chosen the opposite.
You cannot possibly earn it and the great news is you do not have to. We don’t have to try and please God to gain His acceptance. Yes, there is no human effort involved in this process at all. The reason is we are already accepted by God through Jesus. My part is to accept I cannot please God by trying and simply choose to accept it. Jesus makes me acceptable.
So this is for anyone who has ever felt inadequate to please God, inadequate to please others, inadequate to face your problems and inadequate to change your life.
C S Lewis had this to say: – The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself. He is beginning so to speak to “inject” His kind of life and thought into you; beginning to turn the tin soldier into a live man. The part of you that does not like it is the part that is the tin.
So the question I ask you today is what areas in your life are tin and not allowing Grace to enter in and change the tin into living? Remember it is for those who feel inadequate to please God, inadequate to please others, inadequate to face your problems and inadequate to change your life.
Charles R Swindoll who wrote the book Grace Awaking says he found five areas where tin operates generally in the life of Christians and guess what!
- Tins of Self image. How we feel! You bet it does.
- Tins of Insecurity, Paul compared to disciples, defending himself to the church in Corinth.
- Tins of Abrasiveness – lack of grace how we speak and behave. Our response to people. Col. 4:5-6
- Tins of Compromise, Carried away easily, wanting to please everyone for acceptance. Hebrews 13:7-9
- Tins of Pride. James 4:6-7 work, salary, position etc.
I am sure you can add others to the list. It is not my intention to speak on these five areas or any other areas as I do not know to a large extent what your tin is. This I do know that He has begun and will continue if you allow Him to.
We do not have to live like this. There is GRACE. Why not receive and be accepted by the only one whose acceptance is worth having? I leave you with this wonderful quote.
When George MacDonald, the great Scottish preacher, was talking with his son about the glories of the future, his little boy interrupted and said, “It seems too good to be true, Daddy.”A smile spread across MacDonald’s whiskered face as he answered back, “Nay, laddy, it is just so good it must be true”.
It is in accepting grace that we can begin to model amazing grace. Only then do we realise how good grace really is.