Most people wake up each morning not knowing how valuable they are to the Heavenly Father. They lay there thinking what a horrible sinner they are and that they'll never be good enough to make it into heaven. There is some truth in these thoughts for Ps. 49:7,8 (NIV) says, "No one can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for them. The ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough." This verse is saying that there is not enough money in all the world to buy the soul of one person, to pay for it and redeem it. There is, however, one thing and one thing only in all the universe valuable enough to redeem the souls of men. 1 Peter 1:18,19 (NCV) tells you what that one thing is, "You know that in the past you were living in a worthless way, a way passed down from the people who lived before you. But you were saved from that useless life. You were bought, not with something that ruins like gold or silver, but with the precious blood of Christ, who was like a pure and perfect lamb." The blood of Jesus is extremely valuable, it is precious and has value that exceeds known price.
The life of Jesus was in His blood and it was completely pure and perfect in every way. He was like a spotless lamb without blemish and imperfection and the Father accepted His blood as payment for you. You've been "bought with a price" (1 Cor. 6:20) and the value of something is determined by the price somebody is willing to pay for it. The enormity of the price Jesus paid for you should tell you just how valuable you truly are. You can't shout and celebrate how precious His blood is without realizing how important and valuable what He bought with it is. God loves you and He wants you so much that He went to great lengths to get you. He was willing to pay a price that had never been paid before and this is why you need to come up higher in what you think about yourself. You have eternal value and are precious in His sight. Never place your value on how successful your career is or who you're married to. These things don't last forever and if you base your value and sense of identity on anything you can lose then it's in the wrong thing.
God thinks you're valuable, so much so that He condemns people who say you're not. Jesus said in Matt. 5:22 (NLT), "If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell." The NASB says, "Whoever says to his brother, 'You good for nothing,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell." The body of Christ has yet to grasp how serious this verse actually is. Anybody who uses degrading words to cut down another person is being used by the enemy to take away their sense of value, worth, and identity which can lead to their destruction if they believe what's being said. It affects every aspect of their life and many have even committed suicide because their sense of self-worth was destroyed by the words of another. Name calling and back biting is personally offensive to God because He thinks all people are valuable enough to send His Son to shed His blood and die for. If God says you're valuable, then what right does somebody have to say you're not?
You are valuable to God and He even calls you the apple of His eye (Ps. 17:8). You are very precious to Him, greatly cherished and highly treasured, so don't let anybody tell you different. In fact, you're so special that Jesus said "the very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Matt. 10:30). He knew you before you were even born and, when sin entered the world, He was willing to pay the ultimate price to snatch you from the hands of the enemy. Jesus died for you so when somebody says you're worthless then raise your head up high and say you're worth dying for. If you are born again then you are in Him and He is in you. Col. 3:3 says, "For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." This means that you are just as valuable as He is. Paul said in 1 Cor. 15:10, "But by the grace of God I am what I am." He then said in Gal. 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
Jesus said in Matt. 10:29, "Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will." Jesus is saying that as cheap as these birds are, God notices them and He values them. He then said in vs. 31, "Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows." God notices the sparrows and, even greater than the sparrow, He is intimately aware of you. You are God's highest priority, you are greatly valued by Him, so never again do you have to walk in fear. He said in Luke 12:6, "Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God." God doesn't forget these cheap birds. The Amplified Bible says, "Are not five sparrows sold for pennies? And yet not one of them is forgotten or uncared for in the presence of God." If God cares for the sparrow, you can walk in confidence that He will never forget to care for you. Never are you to question God's love for you. You are loved by Him and you are accepted by Him, not because of anything you've done but because of what Jesus did for you.
The apostle John had a revelation of this love and in John 20:2 he called himself the "disciple whom Jesus loved." This also is who you are. You are the one greatly loved and accepted by God. Remember that when the accuser of the brethren shows up at your door, when people say you're worthless and no good. God loves you greatly, it is unconditional, and His favor is on you. Knowing this is the foundation on which you build your life. You don't fear when bad things happen because you know God loves you. A trial loses its power to harm you when you live every day knowing that you are accepted in the Beloved (Eph. 1:6). God cares for the sparrow but He cares for you more. Matt. 6:26 says, "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" People only fear and worry when they don't believe they're valued by God and loved by Him. The next time fear tries to come on you do what Jesus told you to do. Go outside and look at all the birds flying around in the air. Then tell yourself that if God cares for them, He will much more care for you also.
Don't allow yourself to be burdened down with the challenges of life. You can have total confidence when hard times come because God is totally committed to your success. Nothing can take away God's unfailing love for you. You are God's top priority and, when He becomes yours, no good thing will He withhold from you. Matt. 6:33 says, "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." When God is first then everything else falls in line. Something great happens when God becomes your top priority. How much do you value God in your life? Your answer is based on what your priorities are. Do you walk with God daily or only on Sunday? Do you talk with Him all the time or only when you need something? How much of your life have you submitted to Him? The answer to these questions are important because whatever you value is what you will invest in. You can tell what's in a person's heart based on their willingness to make an investment in what they say is valuable to them.
God loves you and you are very valuable to Him. Consider the investment He made in your life and on your behalf. His top priority is blessing you exceedingly, abundantly above all you could ask or think (Eph. 3:20). All He asks is that you value Him as much as He values you. Your worth to God is so great that He thinks about you all the time. Ps. 139:17,18 says, "How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with you." God thinks about you so much that before you were born He made a plan for your life. Vs. 16 (NLT) says, "You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in Your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day passed." God's thoughts about you outnumber the sand on the seashore and this is why you should never contemplate suicide or waste your life on sex, alcohol, or drugs. God has a plan for your life and this gives you a reason to live.
God said in Is. 49:15,16 (NLT), "Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you! See, I have written your name on the palms of My hands." Not a second goes by that God is not thinking about you. He thinks good thoughts about you and this is why His thoughts need to become your thoughts. You need to see yourself the same way God sees you, to see why He considers you precious and valuable. When you see in yourself what God sees, you will be set free from insecurity and condemnation, from fear and doubt. You were made in God's image and this is how you need to see yourself. In Him you have unfading beauty and your "inner man is being renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4:16). It matters not what you look like on the outside but rather what you look like on the inside. This will cause you not to be taken aback when you find a new wrinkle the next time you look in the mirror.
1 Peter 3:3,4 (CEV) says, "Don't depend on things like fancy hairdos or gold jewelry or expensive clothes to make you look beautiful. Be beautiful in your heart by being gentle and quiet. This kind of beauty will last, and God considers it very special." The BBE says "the ever-shining ornament of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great price in the eyes of God." Being rebellious is being ugly and so is being stubborn with an unwillingness to obey God. Being proud and arrogant is also ugly, so much so that it will change the countenance of your face. Don't be that way but instead be like Jesus. He is beautiful beyond description and He said in Matt. 11:29, "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Humility means to be honest before God and He says that is beautiful. What He finds beautiful is an expression of who He is and who He always will be. Rom. 11:29 says, "For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." When your identity is in what God gave you and the person He made you to be, then your sense of who you are is secure for all eternity.
Knowing who you are in Christ is what makes you feel valuable yet many people are miserable and living worthless lives. Why is this happening? Maybe it's because they're doing miserable and worthless things. How you feel is in accordance with who you identify with and what you're doing with your life. God did not put you here so you could work all your life, retire, and then go fish and play golf all day. These things are okay in and of themselves but they'll never bring value to your life. God planned for His people to have a useful life, a life with meaning and purpose. If you're doing good and meaningful things because of your identity with Christ then you'll feel good about yourself. Those who only focus on themselves and do useless things will be miserable and tormented all the days of their life. Jesus died to save you from living a useless life. He died so you could identify with Him. You must see yourself as He sees you. When your heart is engaged with His heart, your view of life and the purpose for which you were born will take you to new heights.
God's perception and appraisal of you is what should fill your thoughts day and night. You are valuable to Him and are precious in His sight. You are accepted in the Beloved and this makes you His beloved child. You have the full and complete attention of the Heavenly Father. The joy and intention of His heart is to lavish upon you everything your heart desires. This is why He made you, to receive all that He has to give. He made you so He could give Himself to you. His love for you is not based on your performance but that you identify with His Son. When He sees you, He sees Jesus and when He sees Jesus, He sees you. All the love He has for Jesus, He has for you. He has set aside a place for you in Jesus for you to enjoy and know His fullest and complete affection. In Christ He gives you all the things you lack in yourself. Because you are His beloved child, you inherit all that Jesus is and all that He can do. This means you will never live a worthless life. You have been sanctified and are fit for the Master's use (2 Tim. 2:21) so run into the arms of your Lord for He is the Father you've been looking for all your life.
Never place your identity in things that can be here today and gone tomorrow. Your identity should not be in your place of employment or where you're going to school or in the person you're married to. Neither should it be in how pretty you think you are or how much money you have in the bank. Jesus said in Luke 12:15, "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses." The Message Bible says, "Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot." God is not against people being rich and having nice things. He is against people placing their identity in these things for their identity should be in Christ and Him alone. He is against people loving money more than they love Him and other people. God wants His priorities to be your priorities. So many people who are rich and famous go to bed insecure not knowing who they are. They spend their whole life searching for the answer to the question "Who am I?" and some have even left their family so they can go "find" themselves. How pitiful is that?
The only way children of God can find themselves is to find out who Jesus is. If you are a born again believer then you are in Him and He is in you. You are who He says you are. In Christ you are His child and His workmanship. You are His friend and a co-laborer with Him. You're the head and not the tail, above and not beneath. You are His ambassador, His chosen one, His beloved. You've been redeemed by His blood and set free from sin. You were chosen before the foundation of the world and been predestined to be like Jesus. You've been given a sound mind and have been justified freely by His grace. You've been given great and precious promises and all things pertaining to life and godliness. You've been given the ministry of reconciliation and authority over the enemy. In Christ you are not condemned and have been quickened by His mighty power. You are the light in a dark world, a city on a hill, the salt of the earth. You are secure in Christ and your foundation is set on a rock. In Christ you have access to the Father, a home in heaven, an anchor to your soul.
The Bible also says that in Christ you've been born again, healed by His stripes, and sheltered by His wings. You have faith like a mustard seed and a hope that is sure and steadfast. You can quench all the fiery darts of the enemy and tread on him like a serpent. In Christ you can declare liberty to the captives and put a thousand demons to flight. You cannot perish or be lost, you cannot be moved, and never can you be taken out of your Father's hand. This is who you are in Christ. How you identify yourself determines how you will approach life. If your identity is in your own accomplishments then you'll always need to do more and achieve more to find some false sense of value. Also, if you place your worth in what other people think about you then you'll spend all your life trying to please them and not your Heavenly Father. But if you'll listen to who God says you are, if you'll embrace His identity of you in your heart, you will find the freedom to live out all His plans for your life.
When you see yourself the way God sees you, when your identity is in Christ and Him alone, you will have confidence because you trust the Heavenly Father who is the only one qualified to answer the question, "Who am I?" Not knowing who you are in Christ will make you insecure, fearful, and unstable. You'll spend your entire life going place to place trying to find something solid to hold onto. But when the truth of how precious you are in the eyes of God penetrate into your innermost being, you will be established on a solid rock that cannot be moved. You'll wake up in the morning knowing you're somebody special and are of great worth to the Heavenly Father. This alone gives your life meaning and purpose for it allows you to have a close, personal relationship with Him. 1 Peter 2:9 says, "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." This makes life worth living.
Ps. 91:9,10 says, "Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your habitation, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling." In eternity past Jesus delighted in the knowledge that one day you would grow up to become His habitation, that He would come and dwell in your heart and abide with you forever. He said in John 15:15, "I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known to you." He anticipated the time when He would show you things that nobody else saw or heard, things that matter to Him deep down in His heart. Prov. 3:32 says, "His secret counsel is with the upright." The Lord offers His friendship to the godly and takes the upright into His confidence. He anticipated the love relationship with you so intimately that He rejoiced knowing you would take delight in hearing what He wants to tell you. You know who you are in Christ and this makes you want to walk before Him with a pure heart and have sweet fellowship with Him every moment of every day.
Jer. 29:13 says, "And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart." God must be sought after to be found for He will not abide in the hearts of those who ignore and neglect Him. He anticipates coming to His habitation but first He must be invited in. He anticipated this long ago and this was His delight before the world was created. He looked forward to spending personal time with His children but many would rather play golf instead. They have time for shopping and gardening and everything else yet they have no time for Him. These people have fallen short of all the great things God had planned for their life. He wanted them to be so in love with Him that they couldn't endure a day without being in His presence. He wanted to take away their weaknesses, fears, and every sense of inadequacy and rejection. He wanted to teach them how to know and hear His voice. All the anticipation He had, all the great plans and desires He had for their lives, have all been aborted because they made gods out of other things.
2 Chron. 15:2 says, "The Lord is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you." Right now set your heart to seek God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. Seek Him with all that is within you. Examine your heart right now and remove all those things that stand before you and God. Seek Him daily and spend quality time with Him. Pray that He would give you a fresh revelation of who He is and how precious you are in His sight. To Him you are a rare treasure that He bought at a price so high it's never been duplicated before or since. You are one of a kind and in all eternity there will never be another you. You are God's own personal creation and He made you in His own image and likeness. He then sent Jesus to die for you. Since Jesus had no earthly father, the blood He shed for you had in it the very life of God Himself. This was the price He paid for you. This is what makes you so precious indeed.
1 Peter 2:10 (CEV) says, "Once you were nobody. Now you are God's people. At one time no one had pity on you. Now God has treated you with kindness." The Message Bible says God took you "from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted." Through the blood of Jesus, the Father has turned you from a nobody into a somebody, from a zero to a hero. The worst thing you could do is belittle yourself and think you're no good. Never hang your head in shame but meditate on Ps. 3:3 that says, "But You, O Lord, are a shield for me, my glory and the One who lifts up my head." You're worth dying for and this shows how valuable you truly are. Jesus was willing to pay the ultimate price for you because of His desire to have you as His own. You don't determine your own worth, that is determined by the person willing to pay the highest price to get you. Silver and gold couldn't buy you and this makes you more valuable than all the money in the world. God paid for you with the blood of His Son and in His eyes you are more precious than that.
Ps. 49:8,9 (TLB) says, "For a soul is far too precious to be ransomed by mere earthly wealth. There is not enough of it in all the earth to buy eternal life for just one soul, to keep it out of hell." Most of the world does not believe this and there are some people who would kill you for the few coins you have in your pocket. They do not have the same value system as God for to Him people are precious. Their souls are of such high value that there is no earthly wealth to equal it. When you believe that about yourself, your thoughts of who you are in Christ will come up higher than they were before. God's favor and His good will toward you should bring abundant comfort to your soul. He said in Is. 43:1, "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are mine." You've been redeemed with the blood of Jesus and God has set you apart for Himself. You are precious in God's sight, so much so that Zeph. 3:17 says, "He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you in His love, He will rejoice over you with singing."
Right now, at this very moment, God is in heaven singing a song of joy because you are His. In Hebrew this phrase can be translated literally as "He rejoices over you with a shout of joy." God is a God who is full of emotion and just as a loving parent cradles a child and sings over it with love, so does your Heavenly Father sing over you. You are precious in His sight and He loves you so much. If you ever go through a hard time, He will dry your tears, comfort your heart, and hold you close to His bosom. He will then begin to sing to you and give you the assurance that everything will work out for your good. He wants you to know that He is on your side and there is nothing that can pull you out of His loving arms. A rush of exuberant gladness will overtake you when you realize that He will never leave you or forsake you. The words He is singing to you seem to dance with joy. You are basking in peace and comfort and you have not a care in the world. You are in the arms of your Heavenly Father and this is where you will always be.