Are You Valuable?

This was taken from Nancy Leigh Demoss and Dannah Gresh's book entitled Lies Young Women Believe: And the Truth That Sets Them Free.
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Lie: I have to preform to be loved and accepted.

A whopping 95% of girls admit that they are always or sometimes plagued by thie lie.

Are you sure that is how everone sees you? It might feel like everyone, including God and your parents, is judging you based on your perfmormance. But is that really true? Let's begin to expose this lie by first looking at God's view of you.

Your value is not determined by what you do, but by how God views you. God chose you before the world was created. "He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be homely and blameless in his sight."(Ephesians 1:4) He knit you together in your mother's womb and declared that you have been "wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14). He loved you before you could love Him. "This is how God showed his love amoung us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him." (1 John 4:9) And, if you belong to Him, nothing can seperate you from His love. "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present or the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to seperate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39) Your value isnt determined by what you do. It is determined by the simple fact that you are.

The notion that you can do something to have value or to earn God's love is heretical. At the root of this lie is a mind-set that is based on works rather than grace. "And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace." (Romans 11:6) Responding to God's love, which He expressed profoundly in the death of His precious Son, is all that is required for you to experience His favor. Rather than trying to do something for Him (works-based), you need to recieve what He has done for you (grace-based)! You can not get this free gift through works, because then you could boast that you earned it. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast."
(Ephesians 2:8-9) Christ died so that you can experience God's love and acceptance as a gift of grace.

Your good works are to glorify God, not yourself. Whether you are a swimmer, a ball player, a straight-A students, or the leader of your youth group, every effort you put forth should be for God's glory, not your own. "So whether you eat or drink, do all for the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31) If you are feeling pressure for things that you do to make you valuable, you are doing them for the wrong reasons. God does want you to do good things, but only as an offering back to Him for His great gift to us. (See James 2:12-18)

Getting straigh-A's or being a champion ball player isn't bad in and of itself. But it can become a measure of your worth or value. When I hit a "home-run," I feel affirmed and secure; when I do "so-so," I easily become discouraged and vulnerable to self-doubt. I have to consiously counter those feelings with the Truth that I am fully accepted in Christ and that my worth to Him (and others) has nothing to do with my preformances. Otherwise, I tend to drive myself endlessly and to always be looking for "positive feedback" on "how I am doing."

This kind of thinking is prideful, performance-based Christianity. Actually, it is diametrically opposed to true Christianity, which from start to finish is based on humble faith in Christ's performances and the underserved, unmeritited grace of God!
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Here are some questions for you to think about:

- In what areas do you feel pressure to prefrom in order to win the favor of God or others?

- Take the answers from the first question to fill in the blanks:

• Why do you _________?
• Who do you give glory to when you ________?
• What if you fail at _______, are you still worth God's love?
• If you could no longer _______ how would you feel?

- Why is it difficult to accept that God's love for you is not based on what you can accplish or on your ability to do good?

I hope that you found this helpful, I did.

-C

To Love or Not To Love...Some Clarification

I want to apologize to anyone who I might have offended with my previous post "To Love or Not to Love." When I wrote that post, I was frusterated with things I had been hearing amoung people my age, and the media concerning the word 'love.' I expressed my feelings without evaluating them. I should have turned to God's Word to see what He had to say about love. Afterall, God created love, right? Therefore, it must be beautiful (if it is properly communicated.) Earlier this week I looked at what God had to say about 'love.' I looked at two different types of love, some of the information is nothing new while other pieces were thought provoking:

Jesus commanded that we first and foremost love the Lord:

"Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One
of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is
the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind.' " Matthew 22:34-37

WARNING! I am going to ramble here, but what I have to say is still interesting (it just doesn't have much to do with love.) I give you permission to skip the next couple of paragraphs (in blue) if you are compelled to do so.

Last week I translated the verse above from latin to english. This verse in latin is the following:

"Ille respondens dixit, 'Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto carde tuo, et ex toto anima tua, et ex amnibus viribus tuis, et ex amni mente, tua et proximum twum sicut te ipsuni.' "

Translated to english it reads:

"He answering said, 'you shall love the Lord you God out of your whole heart, and out of your whole soul, and out of your whole strength, and out of your whole mind, and your neighbor as yourself.' "

I experienced my first "benefit" from studying latin while translating this verse. The word used in the passage for "mind" also translates to thoughts and intentions. Thus, we are commanded to love the Lord "with all your mind, thoughts, and intentions." How powerful!

OK- enough of my ramblings! Back to the main focus of this post...

Jesus commanded us to "love" in these verses. The greek word for love used here is agapao. Agapao means to love in a social or moral sense. I encourage you to look up the definition for moral. It made me feel overwhelmed, and ashamed; as much as I love the Lord, it is not the the full extent to how I am instructed to love Him. You can see the defintion here . I thought about including the definition, but my dad always says, "If you look it up, you own it." I desire for you to own this definition.

Furthermore, Christians are commanded to love their spouse.

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church
and gave himself up for her." Ephesians 5:25

"Each of you must also love his wife as he loves himself." Ephesians 5:33

"They can train the youngest women to love their
husbands." Titus 4:2

Here is where I found it to get interesting...

In the first two versus, directed to the husbands, the word agapao is used again. Husbands are to love their wives in a social or moral sense, just as they are to love the Lord. In the last verse, directed to the wives, the greek word used is philandros. Philandros means to love your husband tenderly. So, in a marriage there should be a moral love and a tender love. Amazing.

Lastly, I would like to clarify that I will (prayerfully) love my husband the way God intended. I hope this straightens some things out, I truly did not intend to offend anyone.

-C

To Love or Not to Love

I have come to a recent realization that I will never love my husband…

I know, that sounds appalling, but please bear with me!

The term “love” is being used so frivolously these days:
“I absolutely love that movie!”
“Don’t you just love pizza?”
“I love this song.”
“I love my boyfriend (or girlfriend)... even though we have only been dating for a week.”

The literal definition for the term “love” means to have affectionate feelings for something. Affection means to have a fond attachment, devotion, emotion, sentiment or feeling for. From what I have observed, people these days do not use love in this context. Instead, the term “love” defines as evolvinginto a likeness for something.

Young men and women are pushed to “love” their spouses as they “love” the pizza they just enjoyed for dinner. There is nothing special about that kind of affection. This is why I have come to the realization that I will never truly “love” my husband- I will cherish my husband. The term cherish is defined as holding or treating dearly, or to care for or cling too fondly. Synonyms for the term cherish include: strengthen, affection, nurse, nourish, friendship, devotion, and caring.

The word cherish is incredibly powerful and full of passion. I desire to cherish a young man one day- I do not desire to love him.

-C

Deep Feelings for God

Read this quote by C.J. Mahaney earlier this week and it really impacted me:

"If you want to feel deeply, you need to think deeply"

If I want to have a deep, overwhelming, passionate feeling for God then I need to study, think, and ponder deeply on Him and His Word.

-C