You Are Worthy
As a Christian do you ever feel as though you are just not worthy to receive from God? When you pray do you wonder if God hears you? Have you thought perhaps you are just not good enough in the eyes of God to be blessed? Nothing could be further from the truth!
Thinking and feeling this way is a trap of the enemy. Satan does it to hold Christians back from receiving what God has for them. I know, there was a period in my life where I thought God was waiting on me to be perfect at obeying before He would move in my life. Although I was growing spiritually I basically thought, "If I could be better and not mess up so frequently God would find me worthy." Oftentimes I would try to be better in an area and think, "Oh, if I could just succeed at doing this God would grant me my request." This reasoning was actually me looking for God's approval. What I did not realize, I already had God's approval!
This sense of unworthiness before God affects our faith and trust in God. I've talked to Christians who say, "I don't pray for myself, I don't believe I'm worthy to have my prayers answered." I've known people who have been life-long Christians and still don't feel worthy to receive.
Christians thinking they are unworthy lack an understanding of their redemption and restoration in Christ. Unfortunately, most religions and churches emphasize sermons based on how we need to be better people, stop sinning and become worthy to God. This type of constant whip-lash teaching immobilizes the Church with fear of God rather than accepting His love. It makes us feel unworthy to approach or expect much of God because we are not good enough.
A sense of unworthiness stems from what the Bible calls sin-consciousness. It means we determine our self-worth based on our past or present sins. Sin-consciousness focuses on sin rather than the truth all your sins (past, present and future) have been washed away by the Blood of Jesus. In Revelation 1:5 it says, "And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood."
God made man for fellowship and to share His love and grace. The Lord solved man's sin-consciousness problem through His Son's death and resurrection. When we receive by faith, Christ's death and resurrection, we are born again. We become a new creature IN Christ with God's own righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." We are no longer aligned with Satan and sin; alignment is with God and His righteousness.
Righteousness
When Jesus went to the cross, He went as our substitute. He voluntarily took our sins upon Himself so we won't ever have to pay the penalty ourselves. Christ accepted all of humanity's sins forever as prophesied in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "Him who knew no sin was made to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him." This occurs when we accept Jesus as our Savior. God exchanges our unrighteousness because of our sins for His righteousness.
Righteousness is standing in the presence of God without any sense of fear, condemnation, guilt, inferiority, or unworthiness. It is as though we had never sinned. Why? When we are born again, we are born into Christ, placed in Christ and live with Christ in us. The Bible tells us in 1 John 4:17, "...as He is so are we in this world." We have the same righteousness as Christ because we are now in Him and He is in us. As Jesus is a Son of God, so are we actual sons and daughters of God Almighty, our Father.
God gave us His Son's righteousness (right standing) which deems us as worthy as Jesus to stand before God. With Jesus' righteousness we can now as Christians commune in fellowship with the Father. We are His child and esteemed family members. Just as we would at home, we can boldly ask our Father for His help knowing He is more than willing to provide. Hebrews 4:16 proclaims, "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."
We can have confidence our prayers are heard and answered because God's ear is turned to our voice like a mother to her child's. Even if we sin, we can go to our Father and ask for forgiveness knowing our righteousness is intact. This is good news! Never again do we need to be concerned if we are good enough in God's view.
The Bible is clear saying that by accepting Jesus (salvation) we are promised a place in heaven (John 3:3). Humanity commonly mistakes salvation as something to work out with God. Mankind wants to get right with God. He wants God's acceptance, favor and the assurance of going to heaven. Typically, man attempts to earn God's favor by trying to be a "good person" or by following the dictates of a religion through practicing holy days, dress codes, performing rituals and rites, eating certain foods, visiting holy sites, making sacrifices, praying and more. In reality though we would never be good enough in God's sight to be acceptable. According to Isaiah 64:6 "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags...."
You Could Never Be Good Enough
Being a good person is not the key to heaven. Think about it, even if God had a continuum or straight line of "goodness" or "being good enough" to obtain heaven where would the cut-off point be? We could miss the cut off point of God's favor and heaven by one good deed or one sin!
God says in Isaiah 55:8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways...." This means whatever we think about the matter it is not going to be correct. God made it clear how to obtain heaven, we must go through His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6).
Salvation is not contingent on anything we do but on what God's Son did. Not by our works but by Christ's work. As said in Ephesians 2:8-9, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest anyone should boast." We are saved by accepting God's gift of His Son Jesus and His redeeming work on the cross.
The Original Sin
Adam and Eve at the beginning were righteous (in right standing) but lost status by disobeying God and eating the fruit on the forbidden tree. They disobeyed God, became separated and lost fellowship with God. Since the original sin of Adam, all people are born into the world with the stain of Adam's sin. Man needs a Savior to take away his sins and restore his relationship with God. God out of love sent His Son to be the propitiation (atoning sacrifice) for the effect of Adam and Eve's original sin on mankind.
Rom 5:17 says, "For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ." God knew after receiving salvation we are not going to be perfect. We will always be dealing with sin but while our progression towards perfection in Jesus continues, we can rest assured our righteousness (right standing with God) will not change. Our righteousness with God does not increase or decrease. Twenty years from now you are not going to be any more righteous than the day you were born again.
While Ephesians 1:6 indicates, "To the praise of the glory of his grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved." The world may base your worth on your achievements, looks, and abilities but God will always base your acceptability and worth on you being His precious creation in Jesus. We have nothing to do with our righteousness we just receive it as a free gift. So draw close to God, He loves you, wants to hear from you and bless you!
To receive Salvation in Jesus Christ simply confess the following prayer with heartfelt sincerity. (Romans 10:9-10)
Heavenly Father, I come to You in the Name of Jesus. Your Word says, "For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved," (Romans 10:13) and "if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved" (Acts 2:21; Romans 10:9). You said my salvation will be the result of of Your Holy Spirit giving me new birth by coming to live in me (John 3:5-6; 15-16; Romans 8:9-11) and that if I would ask, You would fill me with Your Holy Spirit and give me the ability to speak with other tongues (Luke 11:13; Acts 2:4).
I take You at Your Word. I confess that Jesus is Lord, and I believe in my heart that You raised Him from the dead. Thank You for coming into my heart, for giving me Your Holy Spirit as You have promised, and for being Lord over my life. Amen.