THE BASIS FOR YOUR SELF-WORTH

Probably all of us have, at one time or another, wrestled with questions related to our self-worth. We have pondered what our value is to certain others - our work, our family, our extended family - and even ourselves. At times, we may have wondered what our worth is to God. People throw around phrases, "I got mad at myself," "I hate myself," and "I hate my life" - phrases that all connect in some way to our self-concept. So here's a question for you. On what is your self-concept based? Is your sense of self-worth based on things that change such as circumstances and the behaviors of others, or is it based on unchanging things such as fixed realities described in the Word of God? You can immediately see the benefit of having your self-concept be based on and derived from these unchanging truths rather than the shifting sands of your circumstances, many of which are outside your control. So what are these unchanging biblical truths that relate to your own self-worth? Here is a list that it not at all exhaustive.

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Biblical Truths that Describe Your Worth

You are a human being created in the image of God. The Bible clearly teaches that God created the universe. John 1:3 says, "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made." Colossians 1:16b says, "All things were created through Him and for Him." For none of His creation but humankind did God say He made this in His image. No animal is made in the image of God. No plant or vegetation is made in the image of God. The celestial bodies of stars, planets, sun, and moon - none of them are made in the image of God. One human life is so valuable that if slain, God required that another life pay for it. And this was rooted in the reality that mankind is made in God's image. See Genesis 9:6, "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man (humankind)." What does it mean to be created in the image of God? Consider Genesis 1:27, "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him. Male and female He created them." There is something unique to humankind about our capacity for relationship, relationship, and communication that derives from our being made in the image of God. The phrase "in the image of God" and "male and female" stand in apposition to one another. The capacity for relationship (certainly not in a physical or sexual sense) is in view. Furthermore, the Bible nowhere teaches that mankind lost the image of God when he sinned and fell in the Garden of Eden. Every sinful human being who has ever lived has borne the image of God. So much more could be said, but all of this establishes the reality that your value to God is based upon the unchanging fact that He created you in His own image. 

God loves you with an infinite, unconditional love. Before we establish that God loves you, we want to establish that God knows you. People have questioned this over the years, but God's Word is quite clear. Consider Psalm 139:1-6, "O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O LORD, You know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it." These are not just the imaginations of a psalmist, but these are theological truths given to us through the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit that declare for us God's intimate knowledge of every part of our lives. We began here, because we do not fully appreciate the amazing nature of God's unconditional, infinite love until we pair that truth with the reality that He knows us infinitely better than we know ourselves. In other words, He knows us (all of our strengths, our weaknesses, what we are good at, what we are horrible at, our best days, our worst days) and loves us anyway. Consider Romans 5:8, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Also consider John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Now consider Romans 8:31-39, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”  Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The clearest evidence of God's infinite, unconditional love is His sending of His Son Jesus to be the substitutionary atoning sacrifice for our sins.

As I said, this is not an exhaustive list, but if you found your self-concept on these two pillars, you will be on your way to a healthy, biblical, God-glorifying concept of self. If there are things you do not like about yourself, they can be categorized as either things for which mankind's sin is responsible or things for which mankind's sin is not responsible. Where mankind's sin is responsible, our loving Creator offers forgiveness, atonement, redemption through faith in His Son. Where mankind's sin is not responsible, God Himself stands behind those things, and we can trust that He knows best. His wisdom is infinitely greater than our own.  Bottom line: Root your self-concept in the unchanging truths of God's Word.