How much are you worth? Do you struggle with that? Do you struggle with self-forgiveness? Do you understand the concept but simply cannot seem to apply it in your life? And, does this hold you back sometimes from being an effective minister for the Lord? Where does that come from? Does it come from the enemy? Perhaps it comes from your dysfunction? Or, perhaps it comes from a combination of both? Is it simply the devil taking advantage of your dysfunction? We will endeavor to look at this subject and address these questions but know this, it does not come from God.

The Holy Spirit asked me to think of a particular friend, a brother in Christ. He asked me to think about if that brother came to me and confessed a fault or a sin, how would I react? Now, my genuine love and affection for this brother is such that I could not envision a scenario where I would judge him harshly if he confessed to me. I may have some hard words for him or have to give him a " word from the Lord,' but nothing would shake my love for him and my desire to see him overcome. And with my own sons, these feelings are even deeper. Now the question from the Lord to me was " If you can move with such love and a willingness, no a strong desire, to see your loved ones forgiven and restored, what does that make you think about me?"

I thought back to the source of my own particular problems with a lack of self-forgiveness. I was raised by an earthly father who, every day of my childhood, told me that I was an idiot and that was one of the nicer words. Nothing could please this man. This continued until the day I left home at the age of 16. Prior to that, I had run away a couple of times. One particular time was when I was thirteen I considered suicide for the first time. I ran out the door one January evening about midnight. At this time of the year in Scotland it is bitterly cold with a prevailing wind that blows straight out of the North. This night it was snowing heavily and there were several inches on the ground. I walked for about four miles until I cam to the top of a hill known as Lyle Hill. I decided that I would simply lay down and let the snow cover me. It was so white and pure. The grubbiness of the Victorian era town that I came from was whitewashed by the virginal snow. It was perfect by its " undisturbnesses," if there is such a word. I was the only soul out on this night and there was not a single footstep to disturb the perfect unity of the snow. This hill overlooked the town and the estuary lay below me. I saw many lights in the windows and wondered if these people were living happy lives. I lay down in the snow and it was hard to look straight up as the snow was falling so heavily, the snow indeed began to cover me. After a while I became afraid and I know now that the Lord was working in me and so I got up and made the long trek home, arriving back at the door around 4.30 in the morning. My mother embraced me and my father looked up, rather disinterested and laughed and said " I knew you would be back.' It was as if the devil himself was mocking the fact that I did not have the courage to kill myself.I tell that story, just one incident from mu childhood, to let you know that I indeed know what it feels like to be worthless. Can I tell you that it is a lie straight from the pits of hell. It is anti-christ in the full measure of that phrase.

I am in Real- Estate and it is a fact that a house is worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for it. There can be good markets and bad markets but this fundamental fact holds true, no matter what the circumstances, something is worth only what someone is willing to pay for it. How much are you worth? What was God the Father willing to pay for you? Do you know that there is a direct correlation between what something is worth and how well we take care of it? A pastor I know tells the story of how one time someone gave him a pair of sunglasses. He kinda liked them. When he came home he would throw them on the countertop. If he was playing golf and it became cloudy, he would stuff them in a side pocket of his golf bag. He often had to pick them from the floor of his car. Several weeks later he met up with the man who had given him the glasses and the man asked him if he was enjoying the glasses. The pastor said that he was and thanked the man again. The man then said to him, perhaps in case the pastor did not know ( he did not know) and the proper recognition was not coming forth ( and it was not) " You know those glasses are ," and he mentioned the name of an expensive brand. The pastor had not known but he thanked the man again. He went home and looked up the brand of glasses and sure enough, it was a very expensive pair of glasses, in fact they had cost hundreds of dollars. Now, after realizing this fact, he treated his glasses a little differently. They were never stuffed into a side pocket again. They never ended up on the floor again. Now, this is just a small example of how we treat something according to its value.

So, the question remains, how much are you worth? If your worth is determined by how much someone is willing to pay, then we need look no further than Calvary to see your worth. God the Father loved you so much that He gave His only Son for you. If the Father was willing to invest that much in you, don't you believe that He would look after you with the greatest of care and attention? If I, as an earthly father, have a heart to forgive my son or my friend and brother in Christ whenever they humble themselves and confess to me, how much more our Heavenly Father who invested everything that He had for you? If you come to Him today you will find genuine love and forgiveness from a Father who is fully invested in you and not only forgives you but forgives you with a strong desire. His is no reluctant forgiveness. He does not grudgingly forgive you out of some technicality or law, He forgives you because He loves you and you are His child. Do not let the enemy or your dysfunction or both over-rule what you know to be true. Let God smash your dysfunction and restore your heart so that you may walk in His presence and not hide behind the lie that you are insignificant. If you were indeed insignificant, then that would be a denial of Calvary itself.

And so, in conclusion, the answer to the questions. How much are you worth? You are priceless, there can be no value given for what the Lord did for you. And self-forgiveness? Please know that the Word of God cannot be broken. God is faithful to forgive you, and He is faithful because of His love for you. You have to reckon this to be so, grab a hold of and experience His love and know that if you can forgive the ones that are nearest and dearest to you and want the best for them, then Gods love for you is so much higher than this, this is not a theology, it is a reality. How real? Look to Calvary.



Postscript. My father, at the age of 49 , having been in hospital seven times for alcoholism gave his heart to Jesus. He had been an alcoholic for 30 years, had devastated his family with physical and mental violence for much of those thirty years. From the moment he laid down his life, he has never drank again. No withdrawals. That was 22 years ago. Two years after he came to Jesus, I gave my heart to the Lord at the age of 27. My dear praying mother had prayed for her husband for 16 years and suffered terribly for the cause of Christ. There is power in the Blood of Christ, He came to restore the broken-hearted and restore relationships, starting with our Heavenly Father and then all else. The waters that flow from the foundation of Christ heal everything that it touches. Some step into their ankles, some to their waists, others chest deep and some immerse themselves in the living waters that flow from the throne of grace and are taken by its current.

God Bless you Brother Frank.

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Travis

I'll take that blessing MyVeryHeart :) .....brother Frank

We have been so blessed in Jesus!!!

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Travis

I would like to post a reply to this piece that I received from a brother on my owm=n website, it may help others.....

"Oh how perfect and timely are His ways my brother. That you would share such a message at this time. Yes we read that He is quick to forgive us, that there is all-sufficiency in His blood, that there is no stain so deep, etc. Yet the enemy keeps tempting us to look at yourselves, to fixate at all that we are and all that we have done and not done. I am caught right at the moment in a life and death struggle with this right now. Eighteen years of marriage gone in a cloud of black smoke. A little boy wondering where his family went, why he has to spend his life here and then there, my former wife ( a professing christian) who found herself in another man’s bed, a heathen no doubt, a scoffer and a hater of all things holy. What have I done? How could I let this happen? What on earth or heaven is so wrong with me that even the god of the universe couldn’t save this? I must confess that I feel like an total loser, a failure and exception to every promise, a blanked out testimony, a worthless bag of flesh right now. I know the scriptures, all of them, I am aware of the assurances – Oh how we need to pray that such things would not consume us and cause us to take our eyes of the only One in all the universe who is worthy, who is worth something to the Father. Amen Oh Lord.' And my rely to this dear brother........

Dear brother Wayne, I can think of only one thing worse in your situation, that is to go through this alone. So many countless millions in the world wandering is a desolate place of despair not knowing any remedy other than to act in kind or drugs or alcohol or pills or indeed the suicide of which I spoke. To walk in the darkness of this world without the light of life burning in ones chest is to stumble through the most desolate landscape towards an even more desolate hell. The peoples of the earth that caught in such a hellish storm desperately need the light of the lighthouse, shining out in the midst of the darkness and storm. We the people of God desperately need to keep the “lower lights burning.” Philip Bliss wrote this poem back in the 1800s…..

Brightly beams our Father’s mercy
From his lighthouse evermore,
But to us he gives the keeping
Of the lights along the shore.

Let the lower lights be burning,
Send a gleam across the wave!
Some poor fainting struggling seaman,
You may rescue, you may save.

Dark the night of sin has settled,
Loud the angry billows roar;
Eager eyes are watching, longing,
For the lights along the shore.

Let the lower lights be burning,
Send a gleam across the wave!
Some poor fainting struggling seaman,
You may rescue, you may save.

Trim your feeble lamp, my brother;
Some poor sailor tempest tossed,
Trying now to make the harbor,
In the darkness may be lost.

Let the lower lights be burning,
Send a gleam across the wave!
Some poor fainting struggling seaman,
You may rescue, you may save

And so when they that are caught in the storm say to us, the lower lights ” what do you know of storms,” we can truthfully say that we have and do walk through the same valleys of death, we do navigate the same ferocious storms, but we can also say that we have found an anchor for our souls who will bring us into a place of calm though the storm rage all about us. This is our blessed hope, this is our only salvation, this is our singular purpose, to be light and salt to a dying and lost world. Our only purpose here on earth is eternal brother.

You are now in the midst of digging the deepest foundations and there is a purpose in this. The bigger the structure the deeper the foundation. Hold tight brother, this life is but a vapor. The eternal purposes of God cannot be seen in the darkest parts of the valley. In such times one can only reach out ones hand and cry out to God. God hears the cries of HIs children. There are no tears lost. The bed that swims in the tears of the saints are not lost, they are recorded and gathered in a bottle for the time when all that was lost is restored. We praise the God that will never leave us nor forsake us. We remember how in times past He has moved in our lives.

We say to that old serpent, the enemy of our souls ” yes all around us may be burning, all around us may be dark, but I know the God that stands in the midst of the flame with me, to whom even the darkness is light and even if you have somehow dragged me down to the gates of hell and I lie down in seeming defeat, I know a God who even there will come to me. For where could I flee from His presence? To the bottom of the deepest sea? If I took flight and flew to the furthest parts of the earth? No, my God is with me always, even to the ends of the earth. Today I stand upon His promises, and though I am as one who is blind and cannot see the road ahead, I will put my hand in His and He will lead me through this valley of death. For I have died already, died to this rotting flesh that in its corruption is not long for this present world.

I have been made alive and will be brought to a place of inncorruption and will mount up with wings as eagles and fly to my Lord in that day and there shall be no more tears for He shall wipe them all away and I shall rest in the presence of my Father for all eternity. I sing praises to my God this very day, something, you old serpemt cannot do. For you are already judged and your sentence is fast approaching. And my time only propels me towards my Father in heaven. Do what you may, for I will never abandon my God, He is my hope and my salvation and I will live to see the day of your judgement when all your cruelty and lies are cast into a lake of fire. Praise you God this day, for you are my heavenly Father, and unlike that old serpent, I call you Abba!” ……….brother Frank