awe-inspiring July 12, 2011

The Lord has been speaking to me quite a bit from Psalm 139. These lessons are helping me understand my value in Him. Yesterday, I learned a truth worth repeating to myself multiple times a day:

My value comes from being created in His image.

Today, the Lord turned the lights on (so to speak) when I read verse 14 of the psalm. It states that “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” If you’re like me, in the church for more than half your life, then you’ve heard this verse a gazillion times.

Before I could rush on to the next verse, the Holy Spirit nudged me to look closely at the verb phrase and its tense.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made. The tense of “am” speaks to an unbroken continuity. The tense of “made” speaks to completion. I have been fully made in a way that inspires awe, reverence, and wonder… and it is an ever-present state.

That struck me. This scriptural truth revealed that, down deep, I believe that I was once-upon-a-time created wonderfully, but the world and I have ruined me. Wrong.

God is telling me and you today that what He has made is wonderful. We are awe-inspiring evidence of His creative power.

Exchange your self-criticism and self-loathing for awe. He made you in His own image!

value July 11, 2011

Where does your value come from? If you’re like me, you fall into the trap of thinking that your value comes from:

weight and appearance

intelligence and schooling

talents and accomplishments

success in marriage and parenting

faith and spiritual discipline

financial situation

This morning while I was reading Psalm 139, the Lord flooded me with truth.

 ¹³ For you created my inmost being;  you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,  I know that full well.

He began to speak to my heart so clearly:

Before you could think, plan, respond, or resist, I created you. I planned a life for you. I chose you for a purpose. I did not find you in a desperate moment and take pity on you; I made you. I’ve always known you, in the deepest and truest sense. I have led you and carried you often.

I have never wondered for one moment “what to do with you”. I planned from the beginning of time to create you, to love  you, to empower you as my child. I have a clear purpose for your life. I want to use your hands and feet to make a difference in this lost and hurting world.

Beware, however, of thinking that your value comes from your gifts or your anointing. Someone with a less obvious anointing or dormant gifts is not less valuable. Using your gifts does not make your more valuable.

You are chosen, you are Mine. You were not chosen because of your “value”. You were created by Me. Your value comes from My breath in you. It comes from being made in My image.

You love your children because they came from you. You are bound to them. Your love does not come from their personality or performance, it comes from your attachment to them, your relationship to them. You loved them before they could ever love you back. You loved them even before you saw them.

That is how it is with you and I.