Gregory Dickow - Discovering Your True Worth - Part 1
Hi, I'm Gregory Dickow, and welcome to "The Power to Change Today". And I want to ask you a simple question today. Do you have any idea how much you're worth, how valuable you really are? How much do you think you're worth today? If somebody had to pay a ransom for you, what do you think they'd have to pay, $10,000, $1 million, $10 million? How about a life? Not just anyone's life, but Jesus' life. That's how much you're worth. The Scripture says, "You were not redeemed a ransom with silver and gold which perishes, but with the precious blood of the Lamb".
You see, you are as valuable to God as Jesus is. And when you discover your true worth, you will rise to your true purpose and potential. You'll walk in your authority, you'll discover true happiness within, you'll stop being used or manipulated by others, you'll stop craving the attention or affections or approval of others, you'll stop needing so many likes on your Facebook post or your Instagram pic. Look, there's nothing more valuable in this world than you and your soul. That probably doesn't line up with how you feel about yourself all the time. I know it doesn't line up with how I feel about myself sometimes either, but it's true, you're as valuable to God as Jesus is. Let me introduce you to the freedom, the peace, and the joy that comes from knowing your true worth and value today. It'll change your whole life, check it out.
Spiritual growth, you ready to grow? In fact, what I talk about today is going to have a lot to do with your growth and a lot to do with you discovering what's inside of you, so let's get right into this. Would you open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter 8, Mark chapter 8. And while you're going over there, I want to ask you this morning if you could answer this question, if I could ask you this question how you would answer it, what is today your most precious possession? What is your most precious possession? I wonder if you answered that question if it would be, "Well, my most precious possession is my family, or my home, or my car, or my health".
And some would say one of those things. If you're single, maybe it would be my health is the most important thing or the most valuable thing that I have, or my job or my career, my possessions. What is the most precious and most valuable possession that you have? And what is the most precious possession that all of us have, even though we might not know it and even though we might not be using it the way it was designed? It's found here in Mark chapter 8, verse 37, because your most precious possession, as precious as your family is, your family will only be as successful as this piece of you is, as this part of you is. You say, "Well, my greatest possession is my home and my finances. I'm single, just my health and my finances".
Well, I got good news for you, your finances, your home, your possessions, your health will only be as good and only be as healthy as this piece of your life is. So, the healthier this piece of your life is, the healthier everything in your life will be. And this is how we step into our purpose and step into God's vision and dream and destiny for our lives is by taking care of this one part of us that is the most valuable part of our lives. So, if you go back to actually, he says here in verse 37, "What will a man give in exchange for his soul? What will a man give in exchange for his soul"? For his what? His soul.
If you go back to verse 36, he says something about this because it makes it really clear, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? And I thought about this, when I first got saved, I always thought this verse was referring to how, you know, well, you got to be willing to give up everything in order to be saved. And I didn't understand what Jesus was really trying to say in this verse. Well, you got to give up everything because, you know, what would it profit you if you gain everything but then you still go to hell? And that's true, but more importantly, what Jesus is trying to convey here in this verse is the value and the worth of your soul, the value and the worth of your soul. What he's saying is even if you could gain the whole world, it is not nearly as valuable as your soul. There's nothing in this world that has more value and has more worth than your soul.
If you could gain it all, it still would not compare to the value and the worth that your soul has, that your soul is so worth, so valuable, so expensive, the Bible says that you were not redeemed with silver and gold which perishes, but you were redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus. You want to know how valuable your soul is? You don't have to look any further than the cross. You want to know how valuable your soul is? Look at the blood-stained cross of Jesus Christ. You want to know how valuable your soul is? Look at the suffering that he went through. Look at the pain that he went through. Look at the mistreatment that he went through.
Why did he do that? To buy your soul back from hell, to buy your soul back from darkness, to buy your soul back from a lost condition that Adam and Eve had put our souls in. We were all lost, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Our souls were depraved, our souls were dark, our souls were empty, our souls were full of fear, anxiety, and death. And Jesus came to pay the price in exchange for our soul. He makes a trade with us and says, "You know what? I'm going to buy you back". Satan stole you. Satan deceived Eve and Adam, and took their souls out of God's hands, and took their souls out of their own hands. He became their God, he became the prince of darkness. And Jesus said, "But I'm going to come and take you back". He said in Luke chapter 19, verse 10 actually, "The Son of Man has come for this purpose. The Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost".
Your soul and my soul was lost, and Jesus came to find you and save you. You want to know how valuable you are? You're so valuable that Jesus came for this purpose, to seek you and to save you. It's no accident that you're here today, it's no accident that you got saved, it's no accident that somebody came across your path one day and shared the gospel with you, or you got born again in a service like this, or you were watching TV, or somebody shared their faith with you, or a loved one was praying for you. It's no accident that you got saved. Jesus came to seek you. It's no accident that you're in the Father's hands now. Jesus came to seek you. It's no accident that you're a born again child of God now. Jesus came to seek you and to save you. And how did he do it? He paid for your soul to be redeemed.
The word "redeem," we've all heard the words, we've all sung songs, we've all seen Scriptures and heard the word "redeemed" before, but most of us don't really know what it means in a spiritual context, but you know what it means in the context of if you redeem, if you have a lottery ticket or you have a ticket that wins some prize or you have a coupon to some store, what you have to do is you have to go and redeem it. You go to that store and you exchange it. You redeem it, you buy it back. You buy back whatever it is, or you buy whatever it is with that coupon or with that certificate. It's called redemption. And Jesus came to this earth to buy your soul back from the devil. He didn't pay the devil, he paid for what the devil did to Adam and Eve, he paid for Adam and Eve's sin, which means he paid for our sins. He redeemed us, he bought us back. He bought us back from sin, he bought us back from the curse, he bought us back from the darkness, he bought us back from being children of the devil.
We were children of wrath, but Jesus came to purchase us and make us children of God. Why is this so important? Because you'll only go as high in life as your sense of worth is and your sense of value. The higher you value yourself and the more you understand your worth, the more you understand how valuable you are, the more powerful your life is going to be, and the higher you're going to dream and the higher you're going to... you believe, and the greater you're going to imagine God could use you. There's a greater purpose for you than just having the job or the career or the family that you have. God wants to use you to bring change to this world. God wants to use you to impact your life and impact the lives of others.
No one will truly be happy in life until you're stepping into what you were born for and what you were created for. You were created to make an impact in other people's lives. You were created to change this world through your life. You have so much value that God has placed inside of you. There's treasure in you, there's greatness in you, there's a statue of David inside of every piece of marble. That's what Michelangelo said, he said, "I never created the David out of that marble. When I looked at that broken piece of marble, I saw David in that marble, and all I did was chip away at the rough edges until David emerged out of the marble". And this is what God is doing in each of our lives.
There's nothing I can make you, there's nothing I can do in your life to put something inside of you, but what I can do is help chip away what's on the surface and chip away the rough edges so that the greatness that's inside of you can begin to emerge. You know, I can't put something great inside of you, God already did that. But what I can do is I can get in there with a shovel and I can give you a shovel and me a shovel, and we can dig all the dirt out of your life and uncover what's inside of there. The treasure, you know? Every buried treasure has dirt surrounding it. Every great, precious, valuable thing in this earth was inside the earth. You think about it, all the gold was inside the earth, all the diamonds are inside the earth, all the oil is inside the earth.
And it took somebody to dig. It took somebody to uncover it. It took somebody to discover it. It was always there, but somebody had to discover it and uncover it. It's the most valuable possession you have, Jesus came to save it. Why would he save something that didn't have value? Nobody saves anything that doesn't have value. Well, I mean, sometimes we save stupid stuff we think we're going to use, but you never even know where it is until, you know, right? You never know where it is, and then you find it and you're like, "Oh, I've been looking for this for", you haven't been looking for it, "I've been look". When you're really looking for something, you will find it. If something that is of value is lost in your life, you will search high and low until you find it.
Remember the lady that had ten coins, and she lost one, and what does the Bible says? She searched the house until she found it. She lit the candle, which is the Word of God, and she searched that house until she found that coin. And then when she found that coin, she said, "Man, I'm going to call all my friends, and invite them over for a party, and I'm going to celebrate. I'm going to spend all this money on celebrating the fact that I found this money. I found this money, I found my lost coin, but I'm going to spend it on celebrating that I found my lost coin". Well, that's the thing. There was so much value that she had on that coin that she was willing to do whatever she had to to find it because of the value that it had. And Jesus did whatever he had to to find you because of the value that you have, the worth that you have.
And when you understand your sense of self-worth that comes from God, it will always produce value in other people's lives. You'll add value to others when you realize how much value is inside of you and how God made you in his image, and I'll talk about that in a moment as well. But it's really important that you understand how rich your soul is, how valuable your soul is, how much worth you have. My goal in life is to help you rise to the full potential of your worth and your purpose 'cause you'll never step into your purpose until you understand your worth. You'll never step into God's dream and his vision for your life until you understand God's worth and value of your life.
Now, why people do stupid things in life, why are there shootings? Why are there killings? Because people don't value human life. Why would a person never harm an animal, but they would harm a human being is because they don't have a sense of value of themselves and a sense of value of humanity made in the image of God. Animal are wonderful creatures and we should respect and never harm them, but they're not made in the image of God, you are. Now, there's a couple things I want to say to you.
Number one, we need to understand the value of our soul. And number two, we need to take care of our soul, okay? When you understand the value of something, you'll take care of that thing. If it's very valuable, you'll take care of it. Most of us don't take care of things that don't have any value. We only take care of the things that have value. All right, I'm going to give you four reasons why you have so much value. When you understand these four things, you'll understand your value. Ready, here we go. Number one, you will... the four things that determine the value of your soul, number one, the way it's designed, the way your soul is designed.
So, the design of your soul is what will make you realize how valuable it is. How is it designed? It's designed in the image of God. It's designed to think and to feel like God thinks and feels. Your soul doesn't always think and feel like God does, but it's designed to do so. That's why he gives us his Word to supplement our deficient way of thinking so that we can adopt his way of thinking, and then we'll end up doing the will of God as it says in Romans 12:2. But your design, you're designed like God. You're made like him, designed to be just like him with all the emotions he has, with all of the creativity he has, with all the problem solving skills that he has, and with all of the ability to think and to speak.
This is what separates us from animals is our soul. Is as among many other things, but that's one of the main things obviously is our soul. You were designed by God to have emotions like he has, to have creativity like he has, to have problem solving skills like he has, and to have the ability to speak like he speaks. This is powerful stuff when you realize you were designed like God. That makes you realize how valuable you are when you understand the design of your soul.
The second thing that will give value to your soul or help you understand the value of your soul is when you understand the designer. So, you need to understand the way your soul is designed, but then you need to understand who designed it. You were designed by God. You were fearfully and wonderfully made by him, right? You are designed by him. So, think about it. Why do people, you know, why do people, why is there such a high price for a Gucci bag versus a... I don't know, an Ucci bag, I don't know. Because of the designer.
So, if the designer is Gucci, if the designer is Armani, if the designer is Donna Karan, if the designer is somebody who's known as a great designer, then the value of that material goes up even though they use the same leather, they use the same stitching, they use the same, I mean, that's why, you know, I went to... we were in another country once and there was this... I forget what it was. I don't know if it was Versace or Gucci, it was one of those, but it was like a, it was fake. It was like $10. It was $20 for something that should've been $300, the original is $300. It was $20 and I talked the guy down to $10.
And then I looked in my pocket to get the ten out and I saw I only had six, and I said, "You know what? I only have six". And he said, "No, no, no". I said, "Okay, see you later". And he says, "Oh, no, no, no, no, six is... I'll take 6". Bought this thing for my wife, you know, this little wallet thing. And she had it for like 3 or 4 years for $6. It finally broke and I said, "We're going back to that country, man, we got to get another one". Its designer is what gives it value. You weren't designed by Gucci, you weren't designed by Versace, you weren't designed by Ralph Lauren. As valuable as those things are, more valuable than no name designs, but you were designed by God Almighty.
When you understand who designed you, you realize how valuable you are. Why do people lower themselves and do things that they shouldn't do? It's because they lack their sense of worth. I'm working on some things, you know, regarding mental illness and these things that plague so many people, and some other stuff I'll be telling you about as I get closer to finishing some of these projects God's put on my heart, but we're believing to help a lot of people, you know, because everybody's affected by these things in one way or another, by somebody in your family, or somebody you care about, or somebody at work, or somebody you grew up with who's dealing with these things.
And the reason why people reduce themselves to make really lousy decisions that damage their soul is because of a lack of their sense of value. They lack the sense of value and worth. So, you will reduce yourself to behave like an animal if you think your value is equal to that of an animal. You will reduce yourself to behave like a sinner if you believe you are valued as a sinner rather than as a child of God, born again in the image of God, born again in the likeness of God, a son or daughter of God. Can anybody say amen to what I'm saying here?
When you understand your value, you no longer are willing to let yourself be manipulated by guilt-inducing relatives, or people that try to take advantage of you, or people that want you to feel bad to get you to behave a certain way. You're no longer subjected to people's manipulation, not because you're so smart, but because you understand your value. Oh, there's so much would can drill down on this, but we have to understand what will make us understand our value is realizing our design, how we're designed, and then realize who our designer is.
And then another thing about what will make you realize how valuable your soul is is when you understand the durability of your soul. So, you got to understand the design of your soul, you got to understand the designer of your soul, and you gotta understand the durability of your soul. You say, "What do you mean durability"? Well, when you buy a car or when you buy a house, you want one that's going to last. You want one that's going to be durable. You want one that's going to endure and be able to be durable through rain, and storms, and snow, and bad weather. You want something that's durable. Well, guess what? There's nothing more durable than your soul.
Your soul will last forever. Your soul will live forever. Either in heaven or in hell, your soul will live forever. And we're coming down the home stretch here, so hang with me for a couple more moments, but you got to realize that your soul is durable. Your body will die one day, but your soul will never die. You understand that? Your soul will never die, will live forever. Hell cannot destroy your soul. God made your soul eternal. That's why hell is so bad because God created us to live forever with him, and when we reject the gift of Jesus Christ, it does not destroy our soul, it just causes our soul to live forever without God in torment, without love and without God's presence. And that's what makes hell so bad is that you're going to live forever. We're all going to live forever 'cause our souls are durable. They're made to last forever. They never break. They're never destroyed.
You can damage them, but you can't destroy them. You can't make them non-existent. It would be, I mean, what point would it be if we die and then we all just never exist anymore? Then there would be no reason to preach the gospel. There would be no heaven or no hell. And the devil would love for you to think that your soul is only as valuable as the life you live on this earth, but that's not the truth. The truth is your soul lasts forever, and you will live forever in heaven or in hell. And you have the power to choose. God doesn't choose to send anybody to hell. He chose to send Jesus to the earth to die for everybody so that anybody who receives him can have life everlasting. To as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become sons and daughters of God. You have value, you have worth.