What defines you?
Is it how you look?
Is it what you’re good at?
Could it be your job…or how much money you have?
Or perhaps it’s your religion.
Or maybe what defines you is how you view yourself.
What about how other people view you. Is that what defines you?
The other day I was reading in the book of Romans when I found something that Paul wrote:
“The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.”
Paul says that we are defined by the one who created us and what he does in us.
Jesus makes this same point in John 15. He says that God is the vine and we are the branches. I don’t care how productive or beautiful a branch is, if you cut it off from the vine, it shrivels and dies like any other.
Your identity, if it comes from the stuff I mentioned above: money, looks, religion, others opinions…can falter and fail.
The thing about God is that he gives us some guarantees in the scriptures. One is that he doesn’t change (Hebrews 13:8). Another is that he will always be at work in us (Romans 11:29).
If we accept that who we are - our self worth - is rooted in the one who made us and loves us, nothing can affect that.
God himself, through the prophet Isaiah says this: “From eternity to eternity I am God. No one can snatch anyone out of my hand. No one can undo what I have done.” (Isaiah 43:13)
Nobody - nothing - has the ability to change your worth. If you feel that way, I encourage you to look at what God says about you - he says that you were worth the sacrifice of his own son, so that you could live the life he wants you to have.
God doesn’t change, and therefore, neither does your worth.