Lord Jesus, yesterday You kinda implied that one reason You died for me was to tell me I am worth it. Is that true? I wonder if You intended the cross to affirm me or to humble me, whether the take-away message is “This is how much I am worth to God” or “This is how bad I was, how much Jesus had to suffer to save me from hell.” Because I have heard people say both.
The answer is both. Both are true, dear one. I like the way the evangelist Ben Williams puts it: “Jesus didn’t die for you because you were a sinner, He died for you because you weren’t created to be a sinner.”
If an artist or historian spends 100 or 900 or 10,000 hours restoring a painting, that shows BOTH that the painting is that valuable AND that the damage is that bad. I spent the equivalent of a million years of laboring on a painting when I died for you on the cross, and so that shows you were both very, very valuable and very, very damaged/corrupted.
Some people look at the cross and only see the damage, they only see how bad they are to need that from Me. Other people look at the cross and they only see how valuable and loved they are that I was willing to give it.
The truth has two sides. The truth is both.
Humility says, “I am dust.” Humility says, “I am nothing.” Humility says, “Who am I to disagree with God?” Humility says, “I am a sinner, such a terrible sinner that Jesus had to be crucified to save me.” Humility says, “I am not a sinner anymore, because Jesus has justified me by His blood, ‘just as if I’d never sinned’–and who am I to think my sin is stronger than Jesus? That would be pride indeed!”
The painting did not design itself; it could not choose itself. The painting cannot price itself; it did not establish or choose its own value or worth. The painting cannot plead its own cause with the artist-restorer that it should be restored. It cannot save itself.
All it can do is be. All it can do is be what it was created to be, just as it is, damaged as it is, and fall on the mercy of its Creator to want to restore it again, to love it enough and freely choose to restore it, though it take a million years. The painting has no value to present to the Creator except what it was given by the Creator. The painting cannot plead its own cause. The painting cannot pay the Creator to restore it. The painting cannot increase its own worth.
The painting cannot perform to make itself better than other paintings and then point that fact out to the Creator. All the painting can do is be what it is, which was given to it by the Creator, and apart from what the Creator did, the painting is nothing at all.
I AM. In and of Myself. I AM that I AM. You are not. I have something to give that I was not given by another. You don’t. In that sense, you are nothing.
You are nothing but My work of creation and My work of redemption. Apart from these two great works of Mine, you are nothing. You don’t even exist. You have nothing to offer Me except to be what you are and let Me freely choose to restore you. Humility has grappled with that and come to grips with it, the painful truth of how truly helpless you really are.
You are the painting, dear heart. I created you with the fabulous personality and the lovely body, with the priceless soul and the eternal spirit, and I redeemed you through no fault of your own, but merely because of the worth I had given you and the price I had set upon you and the commitment I had made to you when I freely chose to redeem you.
And I have bought you back at a cost of more than the cost of a million years of tedious labor, showing both how damaged you are and also how much you are worth to Me. And THAT is what you are sharing with the world as you dare to go out and love well.
And if, after all of that, another human should come by and see you, My masterpiece, hanging on the wall in the brilliant colors of redemption and say, “Huh, I can’t say I think much of that one. I think the colors are a little off…” can you see how little that should mean to you?
Can you see how affirming your own worth because of Me honors Me? Can you see how dishonored I would be if you let another human being, who is only a restored painting himself, tell you that you, who consist of nothing but My work of creation and My work of redemption put together, are worthless? And not just worthless in the sense of being worth nothing at all, but worth-less in the sense of being worth one mite less than I say you are?
If I worked on a painting for a million years and somebody criticized it, can you imagine how swiftly and fervently you would rush in to affirm Me? I can just hear you now: “Oh Daddy, You mustn’t mind what he said, I think Your painting is just fabulous and wonderful! Dear Daddy, please don’t be hurt, I love the colors!” You would fall upon Me and cover My face with anxious reassuring kisses. How quickly you would run to hug Me! How you would drop everything to respond in affirmation of My masterpiece, how hastily you would agree with Me.
That is how I want you to respond when anybody criticizes My work of you, My masterpiece of yourself.
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