INTRINSIC SELF-WORTH
The topic I’m going to share today is something I call, intrinsic self-worth. It’s the idea that when you’re stripped of all your achievements, all the things that make you feel good about yourself, all your external accoutrements that make people think you’re valuable, and then what are you left with? What are you left with when you’re an abject failure by all of the world’s standards?
The idea of intrinsic self-worth is very precious to me. I came up with the philosophy of intrinsic self-worth during a very tough personal time. I had been injured on the job, was out of work, and needed back surgery to recover. I was in constant pain, seriously sleep deprived, clinically depressed, and slowly losing hope for a bright future. And through all of this, God shared this idea with me.
My idea was, what if you were in a horrible accident and burned beyond complete recognition?
What if all that was left of you was a horribly disfigured blob of charred flesh? What if you were so disfigured that everybody that saw you was horrified when they looked at you? Also, what if you were incurably brain damaged in that accident so that your mental capacity was gone. What if you were stripped of everything that makes you human, what would you be left with?
I pondered that question for quite a few weeks, trying to come up with an answer, and when I found the answer, I was shocked that it took so long.
The answer is simply that when you’re stripped of everything that makes you think you’re a success, what you’re still left with is the 2 most important things: 1.) You are created in God’s image, and 2.) God loves you with an everlasting love.
That is it, the basis of your self-esteem should be that you are created by God and that he loves you more than you’ll ever know. Everything else is vanity and will perish.
But you say, “but I’m beautiful.”
Or you think, “I’m wealthy.”
Or, “I’m a great athlete.”
Who cares? Everything in this age will pass away. The vanity of this age will end just like a dream ends, and the only thing that will matter will be which Kingdom you belong to. Look around you, all of this creation is subject to decay – none of this lasts. So don’t base your self-esteem on anything of this world.
Your self esteem must be based upon the fact that you’re loved by God. You are an absolutely fantastic creation of God, endowed with potential that cannot be fully realized in this life!
Always, always believe in yourself. Not because of what you’ve done, but rather just because you are YOU, and in God’s eyes that’s very special.
There is no better foundation for self belief than to know that you are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of The Almighty God; who loves you with an everlasting love and he knows the unbelievable potential you have.
In God’s Love,
John
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