Identity, Self-Worth and God's Attention

Are you worth God’s attention? Does He have time for you? Does He care?

So often times we humans think that our Creator uses the same ‘rating system’ we do that places worth/value on ourselves and the people around us. He doesn’t! How do I know?

Jesus is God incarnate, that is, God come in human life. Amazing! No other so called gods have ever been known to embrace such a self depreciating act of humility.

Jesus told us, if we see Him, we see His Father, we see who God actually is!

How about a story or two?

A leper, whose name is not given us, falls before Jesus and begs him to make him ‘clean’.

A ‘loose’ woman whose name we are not given, meets Jesus at a well to gather water. Jesus does not condemn her for the five men she has lived with, instead tells her He has some living water for her, and BTW, she is not a Jew.

Or a testosterone-filled fisherman, whose name is Peter, is summoned to be one of Jesus’ closest followers, knowing that Peter would betray him not once, but three times in the near future.

Jesus sees and knows the leper, intimately, after all, He created him. He cleanses him and heals him. Jesus sets him free from his identity as a ‘leper’, and he now begins his journey as a image bearer of God.

The woman whom he also has know before creation, is set free from her life of shame and struggle and begins to discover her true identity, freedom the bondage of searching for it in her relationships with men.

And Peter, hiding behind the rough shod reputation of a local fisherman, is stripped bare before Jesus’ fishing expedition wherein he fills Peter’s boat with so many fish, his boat almost sinks! Peter is convinced this Jesus is sent from God, and in his exposed nakedness before Jesus, Peter begins to discover he is more than who he thought he was, way more than ‘who’ he thought he was!

Our Creator does not use this world’s standard to measure, identify, and place value on a person. Even in churches people use the world’s standards, just a religious one. Each creature has its own unique identity and worth placed on it by the Creator. That identity and worth is measured by and given to us in Christ. In Christ we are fully represented! Fully loved! Fully graced! Fully forgiven! Fully reconciled! Fully included!

Yes, you, us, we are all the Apple of His eye!

this Jesus