Joyce Meyer - The Search for Self-Worth

Well, thank you for joining me today on, "Enjoying Everyday Life". You know, we do wanna enjoy our lives. And in order to do that, you have to have a good relationship with, you may be surprised, yourself. I don't think sometimes we realize that we do have a relationship with ourselves. You spend more time with you than you do with anybody. And if you don't like yourself, then you're going to not really enjoy your days very much.

I wanna talk today about "The Search For Self-Worth". I think everybody wants to believe they matter. And a lot of people, especially people who have not yet received Christ as their Savior, that's a big question for them. "What am I here for"? "Do I really matter"? "What's my purpose"? But the search for self-worth can end at Jesus, when you know that you're worth so much more than what you can even imagine, just because he died for you and the way that he died, the painful death that he died. And Jesus didn't have to come and do what he did. Just imagine coming from heaven in all of its glory, being God, and lowering yourself to die on a cross. And the Bible says that, "He loved us so much that while we were still yet sinners, he died for us".

So, before we ever cared at all, he paid the price for our freedom. So many people feel worthless. Anybody ever feel worthless? I know I certainly did for a good part of my life. And that word "Worthless" means: "Good for nothing, no good, without value, junk, incapable, having nothing anyone would want, useless". It can occur through verbal, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, through rejection or abandonment. God certainly never wants us to feel worthless. It occurs if we listen to or don't recognize that many of these kinds of thoughts that we have are satan putting thoughts in our head. And I would venture to say that the largest majority of the world do not realize that negative things that come into their mind, about life in general, but about themselves, it's not their thoughts, it's the devil putting thoughts in their mind.

The mind is the battlefield. That's the place where he really tries to capture us because our thoughts become our words and they become our actions. And so, as you learn the Word of God, the Bible, your mind is renewed. You learn to think according to the word, not think according to the world. "We're not supposed to be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of our mind". And I wanna just stop right now and say, "If this message is gonna do you any good at all, you have to make a decision that you're gonna stop living by how you feel".

Just because you feel worthless, or you feel that you don't have a purpose, feelings are very fickle. They don't minister truth to you. They can be good when they're good, but they can be really bad when they're bad. And the thing about feelings is they can change in a moment of time without any reason at all. You can feel one way when you go to bed and feel a totally different way when you get up. And so, people sometimes when they feel worthless, they try to cover it up. And two of the ways that I know people try to cover up feeling worthless and their exact opposite, is extreme shyness. They, you know, isolate themselves and draw back from everything. Timidity, fear, insecurity, lack of confidence, and just withdrawal. They won't get involved in anything. That would be the person that, you know, always sits in the very back row at church.

And, you know, they try hard not to be seen and not to get involved in anything. The other, interestingly enough, a person that is worthless can be extremely bold, really like to the point of being obnoxious, because they're trying so hard to make other people believe that, you know, they're okay. And so, 1 Corinthians 1:27-31, are some of the best scriptures of what God has to say about how he feels about what the world would call junk. "But God chose", and the word choose is interesting, you know, not like God just got stuck with us. He chose us, purposely chose us. "He chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise: and God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of the world and the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are".

In other words, you know, the world is full of people that are full of themselves, and they look down on a lot of other people, and God purposely chooses those people that the world would look down on, and he does great things through them to prove to these other people that they're not the hotshots they think they are. And he does it "So that no one may boast before him," we can't take credit for it because we know that it's God. For example, I've written 150 books, but I never went to any kind of journalism school, or never have taken one writing class. I've preached thousands of sermons, and I've never had anybody teach me how to put together a sermon. I've never taken a class on public speaking.

And so, what I do is a gift from God, and what you do is a gift from God. And God wants us, I think one of the reasons why he picks people that the world would think couldn't do anything is so the world knows that it's him working through them. Because initially, I know even when I started in ministry, people just, they were like, "Well, there's no way you can do that". You know? I mean, I remember one friend telling me, "You don't even have the right personality for that". Well, they were right, I didn't. But they were looking at me as I was, not as I would be as God worked on me. And the great thing about God is he not only sees where we are, but he sees where we will be as we allow him to work with us. And many of you still have so many wonderful changes coming in your life, and we're changing all the time.

So, really, every year we should be able to look back and see that we have improved. Verse 30 says, "It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God, that is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore it is written, 'let the one who boasts boast only in the Lord'". There's a lot of miraculous things that happen when we receive Christ. Just, I mean, really wonderful things. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, that in him we might become the righteousness of God".

Now, you think about that. He never sinned, and yet on the cross he not only took on our sins, but the Bible says, "He became sin". And what sin does to people is terrible. Like it, marred him to the point where he was unrecognizable. And he literally, because he took sin to the cross, he literally killed the power of sin on the cross. And I believe, this is just my opinion, I believe the power of sin is guilt and condemnation. And so many people, even after they ask for forgiveness, they continue to feel guilty and condemned. And just be reasonable for a minute, if there's no sin, and the Bible says that, "He doesn't just forgive it, but he removes it as far as the east is from the west and remembers it no more".

And so, if we believe that, then what is there to feel guilty about? And so that guilt is our little carnal way of trying to pay for what Jesus has already paid for. We feel like that we need to at least feel bad for a few days. And, you know, naturally you're gonna feel bad that you sinned, but once you repent, it should be over at that point. So, after we receive Christ, we are viewed by God as being right. The Amplified Bible says, "He chooses to view us as being right". Even though we still do things wrong, he sees us not in ourselves, but he sees us in Christ. And getting people to understand that message of what it really means to be in Christ is a very challenging thing to do. Because literally, when God looks at you if you're a believer, he doesn't see you, he sees Jesus.

Amazing. God chose to love us and to view us as blameless because he wanted to, and he has a right to do anything he wants to. So, the Bible says, "He did it because it pleases him". You know, why did God create us? Did he need us to worship him? Well, not really. He had the angels to do that. Did he create us so we could love him? Well, yes, God wants us to love him, but that's not really why he created us, because God doesn't need anything. We have to realize that he doesn't need to be loved, even as far as his commandments for us to love him. It's more for us than it is for him. God created you because he wanted someone to love.

See, because God is love, and love must have someone to pour itself out on. Love cannot be stagnant and remain alive. That's why there's so much instructions in the Bible "For us to love one another". It says, for example, in 1 John, "If your brother's in need and you close your heart of compassion, how can the love of God live and remain in you"? So, God pours love into us when we're born again. That's another great thing he does. "The love of God is shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Ghost". And then we love God back. We can love ourselves, which is really only receiving the love of God. And then we can love one another. And we have to, there is no such thing as relationship without doing things for one another.

So, don't be a taker in life. Be a giver. "He sent his son to pay for our sins so we could have relationship with the father through Christ". I think we forget sometimes how amazing it is to say, "I have a personal relationship with God". People who don't understand that would just think you were crazy. You know, like one comedian said, "If I talk to God, it's called prayer. If I say God talks to me, I'm called psychotic". But he does. We have a communication with God. And so, "Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will".

Now, adoption is a much more important word than what we think it is. And I think about my relationship with Dave. I already had a child when I met Dave from my first marriage. And interestingly enough, I named him David. Maybe God knew what was going to happen. I don't know. And he was 11 months old when I met Dave. And as you've heard me say, we only had five dates, and he asked me to marry him. So, David was only right at a year old. And I remember when Dave asked me to marry him, I said, "Well, you know I have a son". And he said, "Well, I don't really know him yet, so I can't say I love him, but I can tell you that I love you, and therefore I love anything that's part of you".

And so, that's really the way God looks at us. The Bible says, "We've been adopted by God because we're in Christ". And so, he loves his son, and therefore he loves anything that's part of him. And I remember when we went to the lawyer to sign the adoption papers for David, the lawyer said, "Now, you know that taking him as your son, that he has the same rights and privileges as any of your natural-born children, and he gets the same inheritance, anything that you give to your other children, he gets also". So that helps me understand why the Bible says that "We are joint-heirs with Christ". You see, everything that he earns, we get, just because, I mean, you just might as well get over it. He loves you, and there's nothing you can do about it. And so, the best thing to do with that is just receive it. Amen?

And so, Ephesians 1:7 says, "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace". Now, what about value? Well, God assigns value to us. We don't earn it. He just assigns it to us. And Isaiah 43:1 and 4 says, "But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, o Jacob, he who formed you, o Israel: 'fear not, for I have redeemed you: I have called you by my name, you are mine'". Now, yes, he was talking to Israel, but we are all now part of Israel because we've been grafted in. So, he's not just talking to the land of Israel or to Abraham or to Jacob. He's talking to us also.

Now, get this, "Because you are precious in my eyes", think about that, "And honored, and I love you, and I give men in return for you, people in exchange for your life". Galatians 3:13-14 "Christ purchased our freedom, redeeming us from the curse, the doom of the law, and its condemnation by himself becoming a curse for us, for it is written [in the scripture], curse is everyone who hangs on a tree and (is crucified): to that end, that through [receiving] Christ Jesus"...

Isn't it amazing that all we have to do is receive? We don't get saved, we don't get the Holy Ghost, we don't get healed, we don't get our breakthrough. We receive. All the work's already been done. We just receive. It's just like, the reason why we have such a hard time grasping this is because it does just sound too good to be true. We are so accustomed in the world to earning and deserving, and we can't do that with Jesus. "To the end that through [receiving] Christ Jesus, the blessing [promised] To Abraham might come upon the gentiles, so that we through faith might [all] Receive [the realization of] The promise of the [holy] Spirit".

And in one of my other teachings coming up, I'm gonna be talking about "How wonderful it is to have the Holy Spirit living in us". You know, I think that sometimes when you've been saved for a while, you tend to get so accustomed to God being in your life that you just kind of take it for granted. I remember one time saying to the Lord, "Why don't you do the things that you used to do when I was first saved"? And he said, "I still do. You've just gotten used to it". And so, you think about that. You know, if we could just stay as excited as we were in the beginning, it would be wonderful.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20. "Do you not know that your body is the temple (the very sanctuary)", or the home, "Of the Holy Spirit"? That just gets me every time I think about it. We are the home of God. Whew! I'm just standing here, flesh and blood, but God lives in me, in my heart. Sometimes, I like to just kinda, you know, pat myself. "Whom you have received [as a gift] From God? You are not your own, you were bought with a price, [purchased with a preciousness and paid for, made his own]. So, honor God and bring glory to him in your body". He's saying, "Because you belong to God, now act like it". "You've been made a new creature in Christ. Old things have passed away, and all things have become new".

And all of these things that I'm talking about can only be received through faith. It's not a feeling. It's not something you see. It's something in your heart. You receive it by faith. And the best example I know, and I'll try to get through this story quickly because I don't have a lot of time left. Jonathan was king Saul's son, and Jonathan and David, who later became king, had a covenant relationship. And when they came into a covenant relationship, everything one had belonged to the other and everything the other had belonged to them and to their descendants.

And long after Jonathan was dead, David remembered his covenant with Jonathan, and he went to a servant named Ziba, and he said, "Is there anyone left of the house of Saul that I might show kindness to for Jonathan's sake"? So, it's like God is saying, "Is there anybody out there that I can be kind to for Jesus' sake"? Not because you've earned it or deserved it. He said, "Well, he does have, Jonathan does have a son named Mephibosheth, but he's lame in his feet".

And Mephibosheth was actually hiding in a place called Lo Debar, when really, he could have come to the palace at any time and demanded his rights as the grandson of Saul, but because of the way he felt about himself, he didn't do that. He just hid. I wonder how many blessings we miss out on that we won't even ask God for because of the way we feel about ourselves. And so, when David brought Mephibosheth to the palace, Mephibosheth bowed down to worship him, and he said, "What would you want with such a dead dog as me"?

Well, we see that his attitude about himself was the reason why he was living in a little hole of a place called Lo Debar Long story short, David brought him to the palace, commanded his servants to take care of him, and he said, "You shall receive everything that's rightfully yours, and you shall always eat at the king's table". And the story ends by saying, and I love this, "Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem, for he ate continually at the king's table, even though he was lame in both feet". So, I think that describes us pretty good. You know, we're lame, we have weaknesses, we have failures, we have faults, but because of Jesus, we can always eat at the king's table. Amen? Come on, let's give God a praise.