Too often we base our value on how someone is treating us, how successful we are, or how perfect we’ve lived. The problem is that all those things can change. If you’re trying to get your value from the way people treat you, then if they hurt or disappoint you, you’ll feel devalued. If you’re basing your value upon your performance—how much money you make, what type of car you drive, the title behind your name—then if something happens and you don’t have that position or your business goes down, your sense of value will go down. Here’s the key: your value should be based solely on the fact that you are a child of the Most High God.
How someone treats you or what they say about you doesn’t change your value. Mistakes you’ve made don’t decrease your value. That’s what you did; that’s not who you are. You can buy a bigger house, drive a more luxurious car, and get the big promotion you’ve worked so hard for, but that doesn’t make you more valuable. That increases your net worth, not your self-worth. If you’re a stay-at-home mom raising your children, you may not have the influence of a CEO, but you have the same value. Your value is not based on what you do, what your income is, or who you know. Your value comes from your Creator. You have the DNA of Almighty God.
In Luke 4, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness where He was tempted by the enemy three times. In the first temptation, the enemy couldn’t deceive Jesus into basing His value upon His performance, so in the second temptation he tried to go with a possession-based value, which also failed. Then the enemy tried one final temptation: a popularity-based value. Jesus answered the enemy, “I don’t need possessions, or performance, or popularity to feel valuable. I know who I am. I’m the Son of the living God.”
Nothing you ever do, achieve, or overcome will make you any more valuable. You are valuable right now. God calls you a masterpiece. Put your shoulders back. Start carrying yourself with confidence. You have been fearfully and wonderfully made.