A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, “Who would like this $20 bill?”
Hands started going up. He said, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.” He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up. He then asked, “Who still wants it?” Still the hands were up in the air.”
Well,” he continued, “What if I do this?” And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty. “Now who still wants it?” Still the hands went into the air.
“My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson.
No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20.” Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless.
But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value in God’s eyes. To Him, dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to Him. You are the apple of His eye…His pride and joy!” (Author Unknown)
Psalm 17:8 “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.”
Have you ever noticed that we can struggle with letting go of the past? I don’t know about you, but there have been many times that I have brought out the dirty laundry (again and again) when in a disagreement with my husband. I go back and hash out all the old stuff like it just happened yesterday. But the past is history! We gotta let it go! It’s time to get rid of last year’s fashions and do some shopping for this season’s hottest trends. It’s time for some of us to rip out those old labels and replace them with the latest and greatest.
The labels we place on ourselves are indicative of our self-esteem. “Loser,” “Divorcee,” “Failure,” “Good for Nothing,” “Fat,” “Ugly,” and so on. Maybe we’ve done something in the past that generated this kind of label—but now God has given us a new label…
Read 2 Corinthians 5:21. What have we become?
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
God doesn’t label us according to our past—he labels us according to our potential. Our old label was “Sinner”—our new label is “Saint.” Our old label was “Condemned”—our new label is “Forgiven.” Our old label was “Dead in Sin”—our new label is “Alive in Christ.” Because of Christ, God no longer sees our past; he sees our potential. Regardless of what we think about ourselves, what do these verses reveal about how God thinks of us:
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” Romans 8:1
“Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6
“The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” Zeph 3:17
Praying for you today–that you will work forth in newness of LIFE.