AM I GOOD ENOUGH?

The enemy is the Father of Lies and one of his main assaults is on our value. He loves to have us twist our value and identify together, weave them as one, and delude us into believing lies of who we are not. However, your value is unchanging. It was the price Love was willing to pay for you and it was joy for Him to do so.

"For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son." (John 3:16a)

"For the joy set before him he endured the cross..." (Hebrews 12:2b)

He already paid for you. You can't increase or decrease your value based upon what you do or don't do. In other words, your actions have no effect on your value because it was ascribed to you from the Father from the beginning, and set before the foundations of the world. It was this value that was so precious to Jesus that he died for you, He's already paid the price. He said you were worth it. He chose you. He calls you friend.

"He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him" (Ephesians 1:4, NASB95)

"You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for, made His own]." (1 Corinthians 6:20a)

"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friend." (John 15:13)

Our identity however is different. It satisfies our innate human need to belong. Ray Sturdivant, founder of Mining the Truth, puts it this way, "Your identity is your last name in the Kingdom of Heaven that we all share." It becomes your last name when you are adopted into His family and share in His inheritance. It's your place in the Father's house, you're belonging.

"He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." (Ephesians 1:5, NASB95)

If we don't have our value settled in our hearts before seeking our identity we will try and get our value from it. 'Am I good enough?' thoughts will swirl us into doing rather than being. Therefore, you can't walk out your true identity if you are simultaneously trying to gain value from it.

Similarly, if we blend the concepts of value and identity together, the confusion can give birth to entanglement and entrapment by the enemy. It can leave us feeling timid, weak, fearful and not walking in the authority given to us in Christ. But His word says, that He

"Did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear) but [He has given us a spirit] of power, and of love and of calm and well balanced mind and discipline and self-control." (2 Timothy 1:7, AMP)

Therefore, knowing our true value, who we are, and who's we are is essential to walking out true freedom.

"Therefore if the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed." (John 8:36, NKJV)

*All quotes are taken from NIV unless otherwise noted.

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