How do we fight the comparisons? How do we define ourselves? How do we know we have worth?
We look UP, to our Creator God, not around at other people. In part 1 of this blog post we worked through Scripture to settle our minds and hearts on the fact that we were created by God, for His good pleasure.
We learned that we are God’s artwork, his vessel, to craft and use for Himself. We learned that it’s silly for the clay to think it can or should boss around the potter!
This week, we’ll focus on 3 more truths for Christ-followers:
- You are loved.
- You have been chosen, set apart, by God.
- You are filled with the Holy Spirit.
You can read these for yourself in the Gospel of John, Chapters 14-17, but I’ll hit just one passage that encompasses all three promises from Jesus Himself.
In John 14:16-27, Jesus was speaking to His disciples during the last supper. Jesus knows this is His final teaching to them. Jesus told them they were loved by the Father, that they were different from others, and they would have the Helper with them:
I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”
If you follow Christ as your Savior, then Jesus was speaking to you as well. The promises of Jesus were not just for the disciples around that table. The promises Jesus made that night are for YOU!
Why do I think that? How could I claim to know this?
Because Jesus said so!
In His final prayer (John 17:20-23), Jesus asked the Father:
“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”
There’s no need to compare yourself to others. There’s no need to look around to see if you have value, worth.
You only need to look UP at Jesus and hear Him saying to you:
You are loved!
You are chosen out of this world!
You are filled with the Holy Spirit!
Can I get an Amen?!