The Secret to Self-Worth

For anyone who has ever struggled with self-worth, they know that a sense of self-worth can be elusive and fleeting. The world tells us to base our self-worth on our accomplishments, how much better we are than others around us, how pretty or handsome one may be or how many things we own. Talk show hosts and self-help gurus tell us to find our worth and true beauty by looking toward our inner self, but unfortunately when many of us look inside ourselves, either we see things we are disgusted by or we aren't really sure what it is we are seeing at all. Unfortunately, all these things, our accomplishements, our status, our looks, our posessions or our inner self, change constantly, having highs or lows, and may at any time be coming or going. What ends up happening is just when we feel like we have found our worth in those things, the feeling slips through our fingers because something else happenes or something changes, and we are back on the rollercoaster, trying hard to hold on while we are at the mercy of whatever life circumstances are happening at the minute.

The only answer to a true, reliable sense of self-worth is to find your worth in something unchanging, something eternal and something perfect. The only logical answer is to draw your sense of self-worth from Jesus Christ.

So what does it look like to draw your self-worth from Christ? The first thing you notice is that the things you do well and the things you do poorly begin to not feel so different to you. In other words, your sense of accomplishment is reeled in by humility and your sense of failure is reeled in by grace. The next thing is a feeling of contentment. You are happy with who you are, how you preform and how you are seen by others because you live to serve Christ and trust that your worth in His eyes is far more critical than your worth in anyone else's eyes, including your own. You have a clear understanding of your brokenness and God's grace and you know nothing you can do can change either of those two things. Lastly, you are willing to give up everything earthly that gives you worth, such as your reputation, your posessions, your friends, your security, in order to fill yourself with Christ's worth. You many not have to give up those things, because many of those things are true blessings from the Lord, but you understand they are gifts that could be taken away at any time and you've broken your attachments to them. Ultimately, finding your worth in Christ means submitting yourself to Him so that your own identity and wants are lost in His. If you belong to Christ, then you have worth, because are God's child and the Holy Spirit lives in you. Christ's perfection now becomes your perfection. If Christ is worthy and God is in you, then you are worthy...simple logic.