LEARNING UNWORTHINESS

 

 

We have spent our lives trying to prove to ourselves and the world that we are worthy of love and respect. We’ve attempted to be successful, to build our self-esteem and self-trust, as we lay dying from the burdens we have placed upon ourselves.

I was no different. I had taught at the New York School of the Bible for 30 years. However, for the first number of years, I was assailed by the conviction that I was a phony, a charlatan posing as a role model. My conscience, or perhaps it was the devil, condemned me that I wasn’t a role model but a fake. In any case, I knew that I lacked love and faith—the essentials of the Christian life. Instead, I was self-absorbed.

On a number of occasions, I wanted to “throw in the towel.” I am now glad that I didn’t. I had learned some Biblical truths that had set me free from the torment:

·       John 8:31–32 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

I had to learn and accept the truth that I am unworthy and that I didn’t deserve to teach or to even speak God’s truths. Ironically, this is also the very understanding our Lord told us to embrace:

·       Luke 17:10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

Instead of our obsession to prove that we are worthy of love and respect, we must invest all our hope in the Lord—that He loves and esteems us with a love that goes beyond anything we can imagine despite our unworthiness:

·       Ephesians 3:19–20 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.

I had lied to myself for decades, assuring myself that I had what it takes to deal with life. “Nothing could stop me!” However, the Lord exposed my glaring inadequacies after decades of depression followed by debilitating panic attacks. I was left devastated and hopeless. However, a new hope arose in a God who was able to provide to the unworthy in ways I never thought possible:

·       1 Corinthians 1:30–31 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Gradually, He became my all-sufficient hope. Paul had also despaired of self-hope. He came to realize that his own goodness, what he had placed his hope in, was pure rubbish compared to what he had received in Jesus:

·       Philippians 3:7–9 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—

Jesus told a parable about two men who entered the Temple to pray. On trusted in his own virtue and looked down on everyone else. The other had completely despaired of any thought that he was good enough to hope for anything good from God. He would only hope in the undeserved mercy of God:

Luke 18:10–14 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

I too became unable to exalt myself. I had no other choice but to trust in the mercy of God, who leads us into hope and paths of righteousness by mercifully teaching us of our unworthiness:

·       2 Corinthians 4:7-11 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.

In many ways we die daily so that we might trust in Christ alone:

• 2 Corinthians 4:16–18 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

We lose hope in ourselves so that we’d hope in Christ alone:

•  2 Corinthians 1:8–10 For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.
  

We despair in our own understanding so that our understanding will be nourished by Scripture:

• Deuteronomy 8:3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

Consequently, we surrender our own dreams to serve our Savior:

·      Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

In gratitude, we set aside our own game plan for His! What could be more ennobling and glorious! Consequently, when Satan reminds me of my unworthiness, I counter:

• Satan, you are perfectly right about me being totally unworthy of my Savior. However, I serve a God who is able to take the lowest of people and commission them to serve Him. Therefore, I thank you for reminding me of the great grace into which He has called me, dying for such an unworthy one as I.