Your Created Value: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Excerpt taken from Her True Worth: Breaking Free from a Culture of Selfies, Side Hustles, and People Pleasing to Embrace Your True Identity in Christ by Brittany Maher & Cassandra Speer

 

Six
Your Created Value
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

 

Have you ever taken your time on a project that meant a lot to you? Maybe it was a song, presentation, video, or simply a drawing. Think of a moment in your life when you’ve had to work on something so meticulously that you poured yourself into it and made sure you did everything you could to bring it to complete perfection. And because you worked so hard on this thing, you really wanted people to like it. For me (Britt), it would have to be when I redid my grandma’s kitchen.

My grandmother has always been my best friend, and to show her just how much she meant to me, I wanted to redo her kitchen DIY. Now, I couldn’t buy brand-new cabinets and countertops for her, but I was able to redo everything and make it look new again. Every paint stroke I made, I did it with love knowing how much it would mean to her to have a fresh and new kitchen. I was meticulous and took my time because I wanted it to be perfect. I learned how to strip the old wood of her cabinets, how to sand it properly, and how to paint each cabinet by hand in such a way that it looked like new. The labor was a privilege because I knew the end result would bless her, and it did. After all the hard work I had put into her kitchen, I couldn’t imagine how I’d feel if she didn’t like it or if it got ruined in some way. I had turned something old and tarnished into something new and polished for my grandma.

I’ll never forget the look on her face when she saw it all finished for the first time. It made me cry. She was there for me and loved me unconditionally through my parents’ divorce and throughout my thirty years of life. I felt I was returning to her just a fragment of that kind of love through my labor. Now, when I go to her house, I look at her bright, white, lovely kitchen, and I smile because the hard work was so worth it to see her blessed. I gave it my all because she gave it her all being my grandma my whole life.

If I could put that much love and effort into creating an updated kitchen for my beloved grandmother, can you imagine how intentional God was when he created you and me? How much thought and care he put into creating us?

God created the heavens and the earth. He created all the creatures on the land and in the sea, yet he looked at what he created and crowned it with us. We are God’s masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10 NLT) made in his own image and likeness. God took his time on us. We are the crowning glory of God’s creation. He knows the number of stars, each by name (Isaiah 40:26) and yet he knows us by name. He knows every hair on our heads (Luke 12:7). We are image bearers of God. We are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 129:14).

All was well, and then the plague of sin entered the world. God’s masterpiece fell into sin and was separated from him. But that isn’t the end of the story. Actually, it’s just the beginning. God went to great lengths to get us back.

The Gospel in a Nutshell

Each and every one of us has sinned against God. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Scripture then goes on to say that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). So that means when sin occurs, something must die. That’s the price that must be paid. When sin entered the world, it looked like all was lost, but God made a way.

In the Old Testament, God saw fit to allow people to make a substitutionary payment. So instead of us dying, something else—usually a pure, spotless lamb—was allowed to die in our place and pay the price of our sin. We deserved death, but God made a way.

In the New Testament, we see the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who came to take away the sin of the world. God saw fit to allow his perfect Son to be the one-time sacrifice for all of us, forever. Jesus is perfect in every way. God gave up his precious and perfect Son to die in our place, the greatest gift of all time. That he traded that for you and for me is unfathomable. It’s unbelievable that God chose to do that. Yet he chooses to do that freely, without payment from us.

Our Debt: Paid in Full

Have you ever borrowed money from someone? Most likely you have or will in the form of a credit card or mortgage loan. The total consumer debt in the United States is at $14.9 trillion, including mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and student loans.17 We like to borrow money.

When you have a debt or owe something to someone else, you carry a heaviness because you owe someone something. In fact, the Bible says, “The borrower is slave to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7). The pressure of owing money hangs over you and weighs you down. Likewise, when you pay off that debt, you have a sense of relief. You feel free, not owing anything to anybody anymore. You are no longer a slave to that debt. Likewise, God declared that your sin debt was paid in full. This means that you no longer owe the debt. The debt has been erased.

The Enemy wants to constantly remind us of our failures, our sin, and our mistakes. It’s almost as though he does this to distract us from living in total freedom—debt free. Really all he is doing is reminding us of that credit card that has been paid off years ago, and that’s how we need to see it. That debt has been paid. He can remind us of it all day long, but it’s been paid. So, anytime he reminds you of your sin, you remind him that the debt has been paid and his future is sealed (Revelation 20:10).

Nothing you’ve ever done has made God love you any less than he’s always loved you. He’s loved you since the beginning. And by the same token, nothing you can ever do for him could make him love you any more, because he already loves you with a perfect love.

God is love.
The pressure is off.
The debt has been paid.
Your sin has been canceled.
You have been set free.
You don’t have to strive to be worthy.
God knew the cost and he paid the price.

You don’t have to strive to be worthy of God because the ultimate measuring stick of his love for you is Christ crucified. He so loved you that he sent his one and only Son to die in your place (John 3:16). For your sin. Paid in full.

You get to live from a place of being loved, not working for love. You get to live from a place of being affirmed by God, and his affirmation through Christ is enough. Let him strip off your identity of sin and clothe you in righteousness as his redeemed daughter. You are not your sin. You are not your past. He is calling you out of darkness and into light.

You are not damaged goods; you are brand new in Christ. Right now, in this moment, you get to start over and begin again with Jesus. We don’t have to earn his mercy, just accept it as the free gift that it is. Nobody pays a high price for something that isn’t valuable. You’re highly treasured and precious in his sight.

Imagine How Valuable You Must Be

I’m a huge fan of garage sales, and I love a good bargain. I love finding precious, treasured items for a low cost. But I don’t like it when I see an overpriced item that I know isn’t worth the amount being asked.

One time I went to a garage sale near my mom’s house. As I drove up, I saw it looked spectacular from the street. I walked up and down the driveway waiting for something to jump out at me. I saw a $150 price tag on a used, tarnished set of pots and pans. Then I saw a scratched wooden footstool with paisley printed fabric priced at $70. A little further down, I found an old rocking chair priced at $150. Dang! This place is expensive! In my dismay and curiosity, I pulled up the eBay app on my phone, scanned the pots and pans, and saw that the full retail value of this specific set was $100, unopened and brand new. I couldn’t believe my eyes and decided to head back to my car. I thought the longer I stayed there, the greater chances of me buying some other overpriced item.

Even after I headed home and later into the evening, I couldn’t stop thinking about the price they were charging on those pots and pans. It almost felt insulting that they were attempting to charge that much. To me, they had very little value. They were very used, banged up, scratched up, and there was even a small pot missing from the set. I thought there was zero chance that anyone in their right mind would pay such a high price for that set.

At times, I have viewed myself a lot like I viewed those pots and pans—as used and worthless. Definitely worth less than the price paid for me. I wondered why God would pay the highest price for me. Me—little old me. Even if I didn’t think that I was worth the blood of Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice, God says I am. And he said so by sending his Son. Sometimes I don’t understand it. Sometimes I feel like I’m not valuable. I’ve sinned too much. I’ve gone too far. Did God know what a horrible deal this was? How could I possibly be worth it? But here’s the kicker: my opinion doesn’t change the facts. God says I am worth it. And he says you are too.

Friend, God says you are worth the blood of Jesus. Wow!

What does this mean? It means that even though we deserved death, God sent his Son, the pure and spotless Lamb of God, to die in our place. That’s what the cross says about our value to God. It says we are worth the greatest gift of all time.

When we know who we are in Christ and what he did for us, understanding his sacrifice and the price he paid, we can grasp our infinite value. When we align ourselves with that truth, we can dispense with “low-identity” thinking: an identity that is much less than what God says about us.

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