We all want to know that we’re worth something, that we’re valuable. Yet society, people, and situations cause us to experience low self-worth. It can feel like a very lonely place. The good news is, whilst Jesus died for your sins, Jesus also changed your self-worth.
If a person were to try and sell you right now, for how much would you price yourself? A few thousand, a couple million? Or you might say that you’re priceless and that your life is incomparable to money. I would agree with the last one.
What was Jesus’ self-worth?
Sadly Judas Iscariot and the Jews who betrayed and conspired against Jesus Christ didn’t agree. They had conferred and agreed that Jesus would be sold to them for 30 pieces of silver. I don’t know what that equates to in today’s money but I do know that those same coins were then used to purchase a field. Can you imagine that the price they put on Jesus Christ was the same as it was to buy a field?
At the same time those who mocked and jeered with shouts of “crucify him”. They communicated that their lives were of more value than His. They therefore confirmed His death sentence.
Jesus took an interest in your worth
So, they disesteemed Jesus and believed his value was worth 30 pieces of silver. They believed his life was of no value and sentenced him to death. Taking this further, the Bible even tells us that Jesus humbled himself to this position. Why would he do this? There’s an awesome passage of scripture that answers this so well:
Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Philippians 2:3-8 NLT
Although Jesus could have exalted himself and demanded that people value him as his full identity – God; He instead took the lower position so that our interests – our lives would be highly valued.
Related: What Does It Mean To Have Identity In Christ
Self-worth through Jesus: He was devalued, so that you could be valuable
Some of you may be questioning how the life of one man can pay for the lives of the whole world. That would be a valuable question. You see when I die and go to be with Jesus, I may be able to give my physical heart to one other person for them to live instead, but it pretty much stops there. However, if that one man who dies is God, the Creator of all people, who becomes a man; then His life is no longer worth only one other life. It’s worth the life and the creation of everything because it is all created by Him.
That may sound complicated, but the key thing I want you to take away from today’s article is that Jesus was devalued and humbled as a servant so that you and I could be highly valued and positioned as God’s children.
Your self-worth will always remain low if it’s centered on you. If your worth is centered on how Jesus has taken the punishment you deserved, then you will value yourself as highly as God values you.
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