You Are Beyond Price

The most expensive piece of jewelry that I own is my wedding ring.  My husband designed it and paid for it.  It had a price tag.  It has worth put on it because of what its made of.  1 Corinthians 6:20 says, “You were bought with a price, [purchased with a preciousness and paid for, made His own].”

I love this verse in the Amplified Version.  Purchased with a preciousness.  I don’t know too many girls of any age today who would use words like precious, valuable, or worthy to describe themselves.  It’s so common to here words and phrases like self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth.  But to be a bit blunt, they’re rubbish!  (Please read that sentence with a British accent.  Thank you.)  But it’s true.  They’re so commonly used and yet they don’t solve a single problem.  Let’s do a little subtraction, shall we?

If we take away the less common portion of these words and leave the most common portion, what will we have left?

Self-esteem

Self-confidence

Self-worth

SELF

No matter which way you look at it, you will end up with self.  It’s esteem in ourselves, confidence in ourselves, worth in ourselves.

The biggest need that we have when we are feeling like we’re falling short of our own expectations or the expectations of others, feeling worthless, or we have little confidence in ourselves and our abilities…..is to change our source.

If we look to ourselves for confidence, value, worth, we’ll always fall short.  Because looking at myself, I’m not a great source for anything.  I’m so incredibly flawed….why on earth would I want to use myself as a source for anything?

Hebrews 12:2 says in the Amplified, “Looking away [from all that will dristract] to Jesus Who is the leader and the source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, dispising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Let’s look at a few things from this passage from Paul.

Looking away from all that will distract= this includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Hollywood, celebrities, fads, others’ opinions, even ourselves.

Looking instead to Jesus= OUR SOURCE

Giving the first incentive to our faith= incentive is defined as something that incites into action or greater effort.  Jesus as our source puts our faith into action.

And finally, He went to the cross for the joy of obtaining the prize.  Do you know what that price was?

It Was YOU.

Everything He did, everything He suffered, everything Jesus ever did was with you in mind.  Because you are beyond price to Him.

You Are Awesome

Psalm 139:13-18

13 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.

14 I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;

16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.

17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

18 If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.

Life can be hard, and mean, and rough, and lousy, and all the other words you can think of.  Life is downright harsh and unforgiving.  We have this tendency to wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and think “oh, my gosh, my hair, my face, my skin, my jean size, my eyes…” and on and on it goes.

How often do we wake up in the morning thinking, “I am so awesome!”?  Here’s the thing.  This world doesn’t want you to ever look at yourself and see anything besides “not good enough”.  But no matter what your current belief about life or happiness or yourself is at this moment as you’re reading this, let me pull you in on something.  Even if you choose to call every single word written here as a lie, that doesn’t make it any less true.  And the truth is that you were chosen before anything around you was there.  Before God said “Let there be light” He said “let there be _____!”  That’s you.  He thought about you before He ever thought about anything else.

Look at what David wrote in the Psalm at the top.  You are fearfully and wonderfully made.  That means you were made with thought and time and detail and intention.  Verse 17 and 18 are my favorite.  How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.

He thinks about you.  ALL THE TIME!  How many thoughts does He have towards you?  If you could count them, they would outnumber the sand.  (I don’t know about you but the task of counting up all the sand sounds like a nightmare.  Let’s just agree that it’s a lot!)

And what I really want you to get out of it all is that He is thinking about you but not one of them involve disappointment, anger, wrath, or displeasure.  They are precious thoughts.  Another word for precious is valuable.  He finds value in you.  So when I tell you that you are awesome, it’s because He thinks you are awesome.

Have a great week,