There are many times in my life that I do not feel worthy. I get so caught up in comparison that I lose sight of any worth I might have had. Or else I meditate on my past and decide that I don’t deserve the friends or job that I have.
I recently came across something that challenged me in Philippians 1:27, “ Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ”.
And later says,
“To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power”
-2nd Thessalonians 1:11
We exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.”
-1 Thessalonians 2:12
“so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God”
-Colossians 1:10
“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love”
-Ephesians 4:1
To be worthy means to have or show qualities or abilities that merit recognition. Do these verses then mean that we have to try to earn God’s favor? Or must we have to pay him back? When confronted by these verses, these were my first thoughts. I already felt like a failure in every area of my life and I was assaulted by these lies. Yes, they were horrible awful lies that sprang up from my own pride.
James 2:17 says, “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (ESV). We are not meant to live static lives under God. We are instead meant to grow in our faith and become more like him. We cannot just have faith, there also has to be fruit growing out of our lives. Faith is supposed to move us closer to obedience. We cannot just sit in our houses all day expecting things to happen us. Before Jesus left his disciples, his last command was to go. We are not meant to stand still and live static lives, but we should always be changing and moving closer to Him!
We were called to a glorious purpose with beautiful fellowship with God. This purpose should saturate our entire lives and we should want to reflect this purpose in everything we do. By our fruits, the world will know us as heirs of Christ. We don’t do these things in order to be considered worthy. We follow in obedience because there is nothing we could do to be worthy of Him. Our most beautiful and deserving accomplishments or deeds are dirty rags next to the holiness and perfection of God. We will never be able to measure up. This truth fills me with peace, because it takes the pressure off of us to do things perfectly, because we could never measure up! Our worth should not come from accomplishments, it should come from Jesus and what he did on the cross to give us new life and new purpose in Him!!
When the lies fill your head about how you are not worthy or not measuring up, remember that He picked us out of the muck and called us worthy knowing that we could never deserve his free gift of grace.