Let the Soul Feel its Worth

The last week has been one of extreme abundance in blessing from the Lord.  He is teaching and moving in such a powerful way, and bringing much question in terms of direction as he builds us up.  We enjoyed the past week with our community of brothers and sisters in Fargo, ND, and were greatly encouraged by their presence.  We also saw God work in marvelous ways through us during this time.  Many lies of Satan were chased away in several people’s lives, and God healed several people of physical ailments.  The Holy Spirit is moving in a powerful way, and the learning curve is surely steep.  Now, we find ourselves in Rosemount with Brie’s parents once again, and I would like to share just a couple of thoughts on worth. 

You see, I am sick and tired of hearing the church’s false humility.  It seems the Body of Christ can’t get together without talking about our unworth.  This is a travesty and a tragedy, and another example of how dangerous it is to call yourself something, when God has already called you the opposite.  Colossians 3:12 tells us that we are holy as God’s chosen people.  It has become extremely popular to relegate God’s promises to the future or to ignore them completely.  Holiness is surely not something that the mainstream church has claimed in the present.  However, the fact remains that if you have been raised through your faith in the POWER of God (Col. 2:12) you are surely qualified by Christ to share in the inheritance of the saints, which includes holiness.  It also includes worth, identity as children of God, power, wisdom, and Christlikenss.   However we somehow have delayed the claiming of these promises until a future date, or have written them off all together.   Bill Johnson, teacher at Bethel in Redding, CA, said in a sermon I recently watched, “don’t grade yourself differently than he does.”  This statement means a couple of things as I see it.  It means surely that we cannot grade ourselves on a curve.  Many of these promises go unclaimed because we are so busy simply being better at church than the next guy, or even just average in comparison to the rest of the church.  Thus, when the body gets sick, the whole thing shuts down, because we all begin to live out of our experience, rather than the life and promises of Jesus Christ.  God does not grade on a curve.  He has set his expectations, given the gifts in order to see them fulfilled, and we are foolish to start looking around at what the rest of the world is doing.  The second way that I think this statement should be interpreted is to simply say that we must trust what God says about us.  God says we are holy, but we look around and see unholiness, so we assume he is wrong.  God says we are dead to our sin, and we commit a sin, and thus except our identity as sinners rather than the saints Christ has called us(Romans 6:11).  God says we have the mind of Christ, but we think bad thoughts, and thus we assume he was wrong on that point too (1 Cor. 2:16).  Christ sends us to heal, cast out demons, and love with his love, but this doesn’t match our experience so we settle for less than these things.  God tells his people over and over again that they have worth.  He sends his son from heaven to earth to tell us we have worth, and yet all his church talks about is how unworthy we are.  This is not to say that we should feel like we have qualified ourselves for these gifts.  It was surely Christ who has qualified us (Col. 1:12), but the work has been done, and not with the hands of men, but of Christ (Col. 2:11).  Thus, when we live as if the work has not been done, we deny and disrespect the hands that took the nails for us.  This should make us sick to our stomach.  Romans 4:17 tells us that He is the God who calls what is not as if it is.  If God has said you have worth you had better live as if it were true even if you don’t feel like it.  If God says you are sinless it would be good not to expect sin in your life.  Live into the promise that it has been defeated.  Death is dead, sin is finished, and you are alive in Jesus Christ.  Live as such. 

This Christmas season have you experienced the thrill of believing in these promises?  Do you trust that your God is big enough to follow through with them, or are you living to the basic principles of this world (Col. 2:8+20)?  Our God is larger than this world, and when we live out of our experience we will always miss God.  You will not find what he desires you to be, simply by looking around your church.  Thank God there are men like Bill Johnson who we can imitate, but we must look to Christ.  He is the author and perfector of our faith.  He is God come to Earth to show the way.  The little baby in the manger frees us from ourselves.  We were enemies in OUR MINDS to God.  He has come to bring us assurance that we are in fact not the enemies of God.  We are instead his sons and daughters, and Christ has called us his co-heirs.  He has prayed that we would receive from the father the same glory that he himself received.  Have you ever received that kind of promise.  Have you felt the joy that comes from that.  O Holy Night may be the best Christmas song ever written, because its author understood these truths of Christianity that have long been buried underneath the rubble of Christendom’s false humility. 

Look at these Lyrics:

Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

This author, like the Bible, talks about sin as something past.  That “till” is a big word, and it signifies a huge change, a monumental change, a change as big as the God of the universe taking the human form of a baby, stepping into time, living a life to show us the way, and then dying on the cross to make it possible, all to purify our consciences.  With that “till” the soul felt its worth.  How has the Christian church forgotten its own worth?  When we deny that worth we spit in the face of Christ all over again.  Have you tasted the thrill of hope, and the joy-filled rejoicing this songs speaks of?  A person who still believes themselves unworthy, a sinner who can only hope for their God to come through for them has not tasted this thrill.  The thrill is that our God has already come through.   We need not wait for victory.  The victory is won, and we have been invited to share in all the spoils because of Jesus’ victory.  He won it, and we get to stand on the winner’s platform with him as if we did.  We must quit moping along calling ourselves less than what God has called us.  Live into the Lord’s claim on your life!  Stop giving yourself a lower grade than God has given you.  He gave Jesus an A+, and if your life is hidden with him, than you surely ought to expect the same grade, and you ought to live a life worthy of the grade you have been given in your savior.  That means quitting our comparison too.  We cannot settle for the church’s A+, or the church’s C, but rather the God declared A+ of the life of Jesus Christ.  As the father sent him, so he has sent us!  Set your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith, and hear how and what he calls you (Hebrews 12:2).  I call you friend he says (John 15:15)!  Befriend our maker in a manger this Christmas season, and let your soul feel its worth!