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Through and through, you must learn to base your value in what Jesus has done for you.

When you think that your value is determined by the immediate feedback you receive, then you will never look past the empty seats during your speech. Leave your selfishness behind. Go past the manufactured mental mold that immobilizes you from being bold. You try to impress people with your talk, thinking “If only that person was proud of me, then I would be happy” will never set you free. 

Leave your selfishness behind. Go past the manufactured mental mold that immobilizes you from being bold.

I believe that everyone knows what they want to do. Finding that thing is incredibly difficult when value hangs in the balance between what people think of you and say is cool. I believe that that thing will continue to drive you crazy until you embrace it or until you die because you have spent a lifetime trying to find acceptance in another’s eyes. 

Do you want pity? No, no one shows their true envy. 

Do you want to be revered? Yes, everyone desires respect from their peers.

Do you want safety? Yes, everyone is paranoid for a lack of safety and that is why you are busy.  

You cannot please everyone, sometimes not even one. A spouse in a beautiful blouse will not always seem as though they love you if you continue to base that love on immediate feedback. 

It is not easy knowing you are loved unconditionally. That idea is frustrating for many. After all, freedom is not free. There is a cost to pay for all our fancy penalties. For the Christian who thinks they have it all together because their porn habit stays hidden behind a Twitter handle, you are loved and valued past your lust. You are not measured in worth by how little you cuss.

It is not easy knowing you are loved unconditionally. That idea is frustrating for many.

Stop placing your worth in things that do not last like all that hard fought for success that breaks like glass. Currently, humans seem to have a turn in their value emphasis; finding worth in relationships, chasing their dreams, or helping others like the weak, homeless, elderly, and mentally obscene. This is not new. This is hippy love: Enlightenment thugs.

Even if you do all those things, your value does not change. If you spent the rest of your life writing beautiful hymns or creating medicine to save all of “them,” your value would not change. You would still be trapped by what others think of you and say is cool.  

They want to be an anomaly: Lecrae with The Fray. They want to be an outlier: Man On A Wire.

God came down to humanity. He came down fully God and fully man. Oh, the insanity. What was he thinking? What prompted him to do such a thing? Dwell among the peasants as the righteous King? He came for his namesake. His value had been dishonored for too long. He is full of mercy, but his justice is still strong. God came to save those trapped in addiction, trapped in affliction, and kept at distance because of their spiritually dead condition. He knew their value, created in his image. He looked past the horror show and instead saw their chosen future-glorified glow. 

God came to save those trapped in addiction, trapped in affliction, and kept at distance because of their spiritually dead condition.

It does not matter what channel of value you have mistakenly picked to watch and model your life after. Who are you proving yourself to? How many takes does it take for you to feel like you got it made? It does not matter.

Through and through, you must learn to base your value in what Jesus has done for you. 

God picked you first. He grabbed you out of despair when you could not send a flare. As the Potter forms his clay, for his namesake, he will not betray. He revitalized your wicked heart when you were still lusting and murdering. This was all you contributed on your part. He placed you on solid ground when all you had known and built your life on crumbled to pieces. Your value is in him alone. The Christ, Jesus: Lord.