If God Is with You, What Does It Matter What the World Says?

We are in this series of messages intended to strengthen us in our pursuit of a healthy life, particularly an emotionally healthy life. I am referring to the secrets found in the Word of the Lord; they are not secrets, but principles that God has established in His Word to ensure that we live happy lives, that we are emotionally healthy people, people who overcome their limitations, overcome difficult circumstances, and are healed from the wounds of the past. People who reflect the spiritual and emotional beauty and harmony befitting the Kingdom of God.

And we have been going through a series of passages from Scripture and reaffirming these truths, and I can see that this is going to take us some time over the coming weeks, but you are going to see that, even as we limit ourselves to one subject—the subject of emotional health and of a healthy and balanced personality, character, and psyche—we are going to visit a number of other subjects. It will be like a journey through the pages of the Bible that will apply to many other dimensions of life, but with a tremendously practical application.

Let me tell you that when I prepare a message, my goal is always for the people to take away at least one thing, one truth that will enable them to live better, and for them to be able to identify something and say: You know what? I’m putting this in my pocket, taking it home with me, and I’m going to chew on it all week. That is the purpose, and I want you to gain truths that will help you live healthy lives.

I have told you many times, haven’t I, that when we come into the Kingdom of God, we come limping, and some of us even come crawling because we are so wounded and so damaged by everything life has done to us. And we come into the Kingdom of God to be restored, amen? We come into the Kingdom of God to be healed, we come to be sanctified, we come so that the Lord may remove our bonds. So that He may break the yoke of the curse of the world, the flesh, and sin. So that He may restore us and heal us.

We are like the demon-possessed man from the region of the Gadarenes who, when he meets Jesus Christ, wanders among the tombs screaming, with shackles and chains on his hands, out of his mind; and then the Lord comes, heals him, restores him, and later we see him sitting beside the Lord Jesus, wanting to go with Him, now in his right mind. And the Lord tells him: No, you know what? Instead of going with Me, go home to your family and tell them all the good things God has done in your life.

Do you know that the greatest testimony we can give the world is a healthy life in the Lord? To be people who can bounce back from difficulties, people who can overcome tragedies, people who, despite not living a perfect life, can nevertheless feel the joy of the Lord in their lives. Who can say, like the writer of Habakkuk: “Though the fig tree does not blossom and there are no sheep in the fold, even so we will rejoice and be glad in the Lord of our salvation.”

And may we know that this world is inherently imperfect, but that even so we have the power to rise above our circumstances and be people such that, when others look at us and see our expression, our smile, our way of speaking, and our way of treating others, they say: Wow, what a healthy person; there is something good and noble in that person, isn’t there?

And what God wants is for us to overcome the deformities of the past. That is why we cannot talk about emotional healing or an emotionally healthy life without talking about the things that make us sick. To study medicine, you also have to study diseases, yes or no? To be able to heal someone, you have to know the nature of diseases.

Likewise, for us to be able to talk about emotional health, we have to talk about all the things that harm us, that wound us throughout life, and how we can overcome them one after another and equip ourselves with the principles and teachings contained in the Word of God so that we may live those healthy lives and so that what Christ has said He wants to bring about—abundant life—may become a reality in us every day.

And so, over the last two or three weeks, we paused at one of those passages that, to me, is a wealth of teaching, where we are told to make use of what? The armor of God. And we saw that, by pointing out the different pieces of a soldier’s armor, the apostle Paul is already giving us advice there about what to do when the evil day comes into our lives, or when we look back and see the many evil days we have gone through that have harmed our emotional lives and contaminated our spirits and minds, filling us with inferiority complexes, fears, anxieties, pain, depression, and deformities; listen, I am already getting depressed just mentioning so many things, but we have armor that we can use when these contaminants and these pains enter our lives.

And we saw that each of them—righteousness, truth, the Gospel of reconciliation with God, the sword of faith, living life by faith, and the Word of God, which counsels us on how to fight effectively and live effectively—all these elements help us to overcome and to live above the circumstances, battles, and struggles of our lives.

Now, setting that aside, I want to continue with another principle; I want to isolate another principle that will be a great blessing to our lives, and it is this: for us to live truly healthy lives, it is important that we have an inner conviction about the following: that I have worth because God loves me, and not because people appreciate or love me, or because everything around me is going well. Beyond my circumstances or the opinions of others, the fact that God knows me, loves me, and regards me as His son or His daughter is enough for me to feel valuable or important in the world.

I do not have to depend on what others say about me; the question is: What does God say about me? What does God think about me? I do not have to be perfect, either physically or in my circumstances, to feel loved, wanted, valued, and important, because my God gives me worth in Himself, because God knows me; I am His child. He gave His Son Jesus Christ for me.

A passage comes to mind that I had not been thinking of in this way, but I will point it out to you—Romans chapter 8, right? Because the Bible invites us to see ourselves that way, to see what God says and who God is. Quickly, just a second, and I’ll find it right now.

“What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?” In other words, understand: if God loves me, if God is with me, if God values me, what does it matter what the world says? What does it matter what others think? What matters to me is what God thinks about me. In fact, I say that the more one grows in the Gospel, the less one cares what one thinks about oneself, you know? Because many times our minds are full of complexes and distorting thoughts, and we are full of fear and criticism about ourselves; we grew up in an environment where we were criticized, attacked, and not affirmed, and now all our minds see is condemnation when we look at ourselves.

Sometimes we come from churches where everything is sin and condemnation, and ours is already full; we see the devil even in our soup, everything is bad, everything is—and then we cannot even trust our own minds, what our minds tell us. Do you know that sometimes a person is so depressed that one should not even pay attention to what one is feeling or thinking? Because if you pay attention to what you are thinking, you will end up hanging yourself from a beam in the house at some point.

I have heard this from Christian psychologists. Once I read about a man, an extremely powerful servant of God, who wrote one of the most powerful books on spiritual warfare—Dr. Walter Martin, perhaps; I cannot remember the name right now, the one who wrote that book on spiritual warfare; uh, no, it’s all right, don’t worry (laughter). What he says is that this man, under a very intense spiritual attack, became so depressed and went through such a severe bout of depression that his Christian psychiatrist forbade him from reading the Bible for a while, because in everything he read in the Bible he read condemnation, and he read it as though God did not love him, as though God did not want him; and the Christian doctor told him: Look, for a while, even stop reading Scripture and heal in other ways.

Perhaps you do not agree with that, but I understand very well what he meant. Because sometimes even the devil can contaminate the way you see the Bible, so that instead of seeing blessings, what you see is condemnation, because you are in such an emotionally fragile state. And I have learned that sometimes a person cannot even trust what his own eyes see.

Think of an anorexic woman, a young girl who has this problem. Do you know that they see themselves as extremely fat even though they are skin and bones? That young girl who has anorexia or bulimia—these illnesses that attack that dimension—who does not eat because she sees herself as fat, or who vomits everything she eats so as not to gain weight, often weighs 80 pounds, 90 pounds; and yet, when she looks in the mirror, her emotional illness is so serious that she sees herself as fat, sisters, even though people see her as a skeleton, because your perspective can deceive you even about what you physically see.

And that is why Paul says: You know what? I do not even judge myself anymore. That is why we have to ask the Lord to help us see our lives and see ourselves through His eyes, not through our own physical eyes.

Many times a woman or a man may have a small flaw on his or her face and begin to think about that flaw and say: Why did I have to inherit that from my father or my mother? And this and that, and the person begins to—and you know what? Every time that person looks in the mirror, the first thing he or she sees is that blessed little problem. Perhaps other people do not see it, but from thinking about it so much, it is now the first thing that person focuses on, and perhaps the person sees a big nose stuck to a face. And happy, peaceful people do not even notice it, but you—that is what you see. It is like young teenagers when they have a pimple and have to go to the school dance; listen, that pimple turns into a ten-pound tumor, because you just cannot trust it, you know?

The world deforms us and distorts the way we see ourselves, and that is why we have to ask the Lord: Lord, help me see the world through Your eyes, not even through my own eyes, and certainly still less through the eyes of the world.

Sometimes we Christians are so focused on obtaining the approval of others, on validating ourselves through our pedigree. There are people who come from very poor circumstances and endured hunger and hardship in their countries; as children they developed an inferiority complex because they were the ones with torn shoes when they went to school and the other children laughed at them, because they had a hole in the seat of their pants. And that deformed them so much that when they reach adulthood, they want to overwhelm it by acquiring degrees, making money, dressing absolutely first-class, and having people call them Don So-and-So or Engineer Such-and-Such, or this, that, and the other, because they believe that in this way they will drive away the ghosts of the childhood poverty they suffered. And you know what? They do not succeed.

Then their entire life becomes a quest to silence that insatiable monster inside them with degrees, big cars, and a large mansion; then they go into debt, work excessively, harm their marriages, fail even more, and the devil entangles them further in that web of destruction, because those monsters are not satisfied by anything you throw at them. That is a fire that cannot be extinguished with all the circumstantial water you may want to pour on it; there has to be inner healing.

There has to come a moment when you say: You know what? I am not going to feed you anymore; you are going to starve to death because I am not giving you any more. I have worth because God loves me; I have worth because I am valuable in myself, because Christ died on the cross of Calvary, not because of what people say.

The Bible says: “He who did not spare even His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, freely give us all things?” Listen, if God loved you enough to give His only begotten Son—wow—that means He loves you tremendously; and if the King of the universe loves you, why should you care that some little tadpole out on the street does not love you or affirm you! If God gives you worth, why do you need men to give you worth?

You have to think: Wow, the most powerful judge of everything beautiful, everything lovely, everything valuable, loves me and values me; why should I care if everyone else fails to see it? You have to fall in love with what God has said about your life. You have to be so centered on God’s good and benevolent purposes for you that you have no time to think about whatever everyone else may want, right?

“Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is the one who will condemn? Christ is the One who died, and more than that, who also rose again, who is moreover at the right hand of God, and who also intercedes for us.” Read that whole section so that you may understand God’s immense love for your life and understand that your Father, who created you, loves you, values you, uses you, and invests in you.

Although your earthly father has not called you, your heavenly Father has good purposes for your life. Although your family life may not have been the best, your Creator heals all the wounds in your life, and always think about that whenever you feel small, self-conscious, at the mercy of people; think: I cannot invest my life in trying to satisfy others. Christians must be radically focused on their relationship with God.

If you read Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, there is a call for us to disconnect ourselves from what people think and the value people assign to us, and to cling so firmly to the consideration, “What does God think of me? How does God see me?” that everything else becomes completely irrelevant. I see that radical independence from society, from circumstances, and from all the events of the past on every page of Scripture.

Look, for example, at Psalm 56, verse 4—just one verse. This is what I mean: when we become accustomed to looking at the Bible through the lens of emotional health and the counsel God gives us on how to acquire it, that transforms the way we read Scripture.

What does verse 4 of Psalm 56 say? “In God I will praise His Word; in God I have trusted”—listen to that: in God, in God, in God—“in God I have trusted; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” What is the answer? Nothing. What can man do to me? Tell yourself that every day when you go to work. What can the people who gossip because I am a Christian and do not do this or that do to me? What can man do to me?

And I tell young people: young people, free yourselves from what people think. If you want to live a life in Christ, young person—a powerful life—and be a leader, a person of influence, the first thing you have to do is stop focusing so much on what your friends say about you. Stop trying to please your friends; you will never please them. You can never please the world enough; in fact, you cannot even do so within the Church itself.

I tell the brothers and sisters: if some sister gave you a dirty look or gave you a prophecy you did not like when you went to the front, forget about it. Take two aspirin when you get home and put it out of your mind. There are brothers and sisters who stop coming to Church because some sister did not greet them when they sat beside her. “And look, she looked at me this way, and they said this, and at the small group over there they told me this and that; they did not visit me, they did not make a fuss over me, they did not send me food when I was sick.” Listen to me: they lose the joy of the Lord and stop coming to Church; then the devil gives them a good beating because they abandoned the protection they had.

Sometimes we live filled with resentment and other things, and with other fears, because the world seems to control us. What people do to us, what they say to us, what they do not do for us, whether they sent us a birthday card or did not send one—it affects us. Then we are like puppets at the mercy of people. When you come to Church, cling to the Lord; cling to Christ.

Now, it is good for us to come and worship as a community and as a body; that is true. But also be careful not to attach your faith to the Pastor, the Church leaders, your small-group leader, or the sister who seems to be a paragon of virtue but whom you later discover is not. Cling to the Lord Jesus; obtain your worth and your joy from Him, and glory to God for everything else! It is good if there is harmony and all that, but that must not be what determines your joy in the Lord.

I say that the circumstances of the world and what people think of us have their value, but as I was telling the sisters this morning, they are like the accessories women wear—accessories, you know? Accessories are the little chains, necklaces, earrings, right? All those things the sisters wear—and the brothers too: the little bracelet they have there. I have already seen one, and nowadays they even wear their little earrings, believe it or not. Those are accessories, right? And accessories are just that.

Why are they called accessories? Because they are like an aid. What matters is that you come dressed, because what good is it to have many accessories if you come naked? (laughter) That is not the idea, is it? What matters is the outfit. And you know what? The Lord is the One who clothes you with His mercy, His goodness, His love, His validation, His authenticity. Everything else—the little earring you wear, the necklace, the bracelet, the ring—all of that is lovely, but it is not what makes you handsome or beautiful.

Because if you take all that off, remove your makeup, and look at yourself in the mirror, and that was what made you feel valuable, you are going to be surprised; you are going to suffer greatly. Brothers and sisters, we have to have a realistic attitude about who we are and know that, at the end of the day, everyone has an area of weakness, woundedness, and sadness. That person about whom you think, “Wow, look how handsome he is. I wish I were exactly like that man—six foot four, green eyes, lots of hair, lots of muscles—wow, just like that.” But when that guy gets up in the morning and sometimes looks at himself in the mirror at six in the morning before going to work, he is probably horrified by himself. He sees himself naked there before getting into the shower, and there all the flaws are; no one can hide them. Everyone has their own area, brothers and sisters, and we cannot live our lives comparing ourselves with others.

Do not compare yourself. Do not compare either your sufferings or your progress, because many people say, “Oh, I am better than so-and-so because I have this and I have that.” That is a lie. Nor are you worse. You are you. God created you in a certain way, and there is beauty in that; there is value in that. Every day you have to take a spoonful of the medicine that says you have worth because God loves you, not because people approve of you. Stop seeking the approval of others, or stop looking for a sense of worth in acquiring things and putting on accessories: a house, a car, a degree, a beautiful woman, supposedly ideal children, whatever it may be, a prestigious job. Brother, none of that will manage to penetrate your heart and heal the wounds that are there.

Only the power of the Holy Spirit and knowing that God is with you and is on your side, that God loves you, and that no one will be able to snatch you from His hands. Your Father is willing to fight the devil with you, bare-knuckled—and He does not have to, because He merely says to him, “Go,” and that is all He has to do.

But the Bible is full of those declarations, brothers and sisters. Psalm 139, for example, is beautiful; in English it is even more eloquent. But Psalm 139, verses 13 through 16, speaks about the psalmist’s sense of how God looks at him and values him, and how God is committed to him and to his life. I think even of verse 1 of Psalm 139. I know that Psalm by heart, because one of the things about these principles is that you have to repeat them to yourself over and over again and confess them with your mouth until they become a reality in your life.

This psalmist says: “O Jehovah, You have known me; You have searched me and known me. You have known my sitting down and my rising up.” That can be seen in two ways, right? But now I choose to see it in this sense: wow, God is a witness to everything in your life. God walks with you. God watches over the most intimate movements of your heart and your mind. God is with you in the struggle and in the heat of life. God is with you in your sadness. He is with you even when you offend Him and sin and fail Him. He does not reject you. He receives you when you repent and come to Him a little dirty because of something you did, and you confess. He tells you, “Do not worry. I have a tub full of clean water here; bathe, and I have a fresh, new outfit for you to put on.” There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, the Word says. God is a witness to everything we go through.

I love the idea that God values me so much that He is present in the smallest circumstance of my life, that He is living my life with me, and that He is a witness to everything that happens—like a mother whose little boy comes home because his friends said something to him at school or whatever it may be, and she takes him in her arms, comforts him, and instills courage and affection in him. Do you know that this is what a father or a mother does? That is the value of having parents who truly have loved us, because when you value your children, love them unconditionally, and instill that affection in them, it is a source of blessing for your children.

Then later they do not have to keep seeking healing while thinking, “Oh, my father criticized me; he did not affirm me; he did not love me. He was always demanding this and demanding that. I always had to pay him for his affection with good grades or this or that.” The love of a father and a mother—the warmth instilled simply through physical closeness—makes an extraordinary contribution to a child’s emotional health.

Now, what happens is this: if you have not had that, when you enter the Gospel, there are other things; there are other consolations. Remember that the most important thing is the value your heavenly Father gives you. But if we can give our children both things—the warmth of a mother and father, and also the warmth of their heavenly Father when we are no longer there—then they are blessed on every side; they are protected on every side. But there is something one feels when one knows, “My Father loves me, knows me, values me, sees me, witnesses my struggles, and is committed to me.” That is marvelous. That instills peace in our hearts. Then the world has no power over our lives.

Then he says all of this, right? Look at verse 5: “You have surrounded me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot comprehend it. Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Where shall I flee from Your Presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; and if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, even there You are.” Right? This sense the psalmist has of the companionship of his God at all times is marvelous.

The Bible is full of passages like that, reminding us that although things may appear otherwise, God favors us and loves us. Many times the problem is that we are not conscious of God’s love. We worry more about others who seem to be more blessed, and that is why I say: do not compare yourself with anyone. Do not look at someone else and say, “Oh, look how he is prospering. Look, now he bought a new house, while I am here in my little run-down apartment.” No, no; forget about that. The Bible says, “Time and opportunity happen to all.” Someday that person will also need consolation because of something.

Look at where you are, what God has for your life, and what your goals and plans are in the Lord, and focus on that. Sometimes it will seem as though God is far from you, but He is there, working in marvelous and hidden ways to strengthen you and lay the foundations for your future prosperity and future blessing.

I think of the two sons in that parable of Jesus Christ—the prodigal son and the faithful son—both there within its dynamic. We always focus on the prodigal son, who leaves, offends his father, goes through much tragedy, returns sorrowful, and is received by his father and restored to his former position. But we do not think enough about the other son, the faithful one who stayed at home, because he speaks to me more than the other one does. When the faithful son who stays at home sees the father treating his brother so well, he takes offense, and then it comes to light that there is a sense of rejection in him. He says to him, “Hey, look at this: this boy leaves home, squanders all your money, dishonors the family, and now he comes back completely broken down, and you receive him and give him food, give him a robe, and put the ring on him. And not only that, but you order the fattened calf to be killed for him. And as for me, I have served you all my life, I have never done anything wrong, and I have looked after your business and your affairs, yet you have not even given me a chicken so I could celebrate with my brothers and make a stew or whatever.”

Sometimes we feel that way, you see? We compare ourselves with another person: “Oh, just look at how God blesses him, how God does this for him, how God does that for him.” And sometimes, do you know why? Because that person needs more than you do, and so sometimes God has to hold back the weaker one a little. And then God says, “Boy, what are you talking about? Everything I have is yours. Why did you not take a calf and kill it—or ten calves? You own everything I have. Use it; enjoy it,” right?

And that is instructive, because sometimes we allow our inferiority complexes, insecurities, and low self-esteem to distort the way we interpret God’s processes, the way God works, the way we see others, and the way we see ourselves.

Instead of seeing the glass as half full, we see it as half empty. Instead of seeing all the good things God is doing in my life in so many ways, we see the things He is not doing. Instead of seeing that we have a plate of food we can eat in our home, that we have friends, that we have a Father who has redeemed us, that we have eternal life assured, that we have eternal life assured, and that we have a Church that loves us, we see only the fact that my car is not this year’s model, that I have been looking for a brand-new one for years and have not been able to get one, and that God has not given it to me. We stop praying; we become bitter and discouraged instead of looking at all the good things in our lives and all the reasons we have to celebrate and give thanks to the Lord.

And that is why it is important for you to know: No, God loves me, God cares about me, God is with me; I am not going to compare myself with anyone, I am not going to let anyone control my feelings or the way I see myself. God is faithful, and even though I am not perfect, and even though there are others who seem to be more gifted than I am, what God is looking for is the worth of my heart, my inherent worth that I have in Him.

Another illustration that reminds us of this principle: David and his brothers, when the prophet Samuel comes to David’s house because God has told him: The future king of Israel, the one who is going to replace Saul, is in that house, right? Samuel begins to judge the way men judge, right? According to the brothers’ height, muscles, and appearance. God does not tell him who the heir is, but He tells him: He resides in that house.

And then he says to the father: Well, where are your sons? And the father brings them to him—it is like a beauty pageant—he brings him all his sons because they are big, strong, impressive-looking men of war, and one by one they come, and Samuel says: Wow, this has to be the one; look, he is six foot four and has biceps the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s, he would look good in battle gear, he would represent the nation well. And God tells him: That is not the one; I reject him. Ah, the other one—bigger still, stronger, more impressive-looking, more intelligent, more distinguished—that absolutely has to be the one. Not that one either; don’t get dressed, because you’re not going.

And why does the Bible present these people one after another after another? It is because God wanted to illustrate something, because the writer could very well have omitted all of that and simply said: All the sons of Father Eli came, and none of them was the one, and in the end this happened, right? But God, with the Holy Spirit inspiring the writer, presents them one by one so that our minds will become thoroughly imbued with a truth, namely, that God does not measure physical appearance. God values human beings in a very different way from the way human beings value them, even pastors and anointed people like Samuel at times. People are always looking at appearances, and people are always looking for someone to manipulate them, let me tell you—always.

The pastors who manipulate them are often the ones people want, the ones who steal their money, the ones who put on a big show; those are the people they often respect—forgive me for saying so. The apostle Paul—in fact, I want to illustrate that with another example, because there are many illustrations, but I do not want to lose my train of thought, right? I am getting ahead of myself. The point is that when they have all passed by, the Lord becomes upset with Samuel and tells him: None of those is the one; I reject them all.

And then Samuel says: Well, but You sent me to this address; I looked it up on the GPS, and this is where it brought me. Look, there it is: 274 Such-and-Such Street in Bethlehem, or whatever, okay. And then he says to the father: But isn’t there another one somewhere around here? Are these all your sons? Oh, wait, I forgot: There is one out there in the field; send for little David, who is out there. It did not occur to me because he is so tiny and so ugly (laughter). That was not really the case; he was a potential Brad Pitt, but you could not tell because he was covered in dirt and sheep grime, and he smelled bad and all that because he was out in the field among the sheep.

And when they bring David to him, the Lord says: That is the one; he is the real deal. I reject all the others because I look at the heart; I do not look at outward appearance. Brother, sister: Fill your life with that truth. God does not look at your pedigree, how many degrees you earned or did not earn, the house you have, your achievements, or your bank account. God looks at your worth as His son, His daughter; your heart; your desire to please Him; your level of consecration; your loyalty to the Kingdom of God; your love for others; your desire to serve Him; the nobility of your heart; your generosity; your compassion for others. We all have unconditional access to that, and that determines the value God gives you and the worth you possess.

A person can be a king seated in a palace and have less worth than a beggar, as we see in the parable of Lazarus, because God sees the heart; God sees the inherent worth within you, the spirit He placed in you. When God sees you, He does not see a man or a woman with little scars from different physical or spiritual situations in life. Do you know what God sees? God sees a spirit; God sees His life, which He breathed through your nostrils with Adam and Eve, when He touched your mother’s womb and a light of life came on, when a creature was born through the union of your father and mother and the spark of life was kindled—and that bears the spark of God.

God sees His life within you; God sees the eternity He has placed within you. God sees the beauty of His Person and the Person of His Son in you; He does not see the accessories and foolish things of life, and we have to see that part. And life is full of this principle. I could be here for hours just developing that truth: that our worth comes not from men or from what circumstances determine, but because God loves us and gives us worth. And this afternoon I want you to get that into every part of your being.

Almost the last thing I am going to say—almost the last thing; musicians, come up—is that for these truths to become real in us, you need to say them a thousand times or more. What I am telling you is very easy to say, and you say: Ah, it is true. But listen to me, how difficult that becomes when you go to work, or when you have to deal with the dynamics of your cell group, or when you look at all your fears and all the complexes you have inside. For God’s Truth to become real in our lives, we have to confess it, we have to read it, we have to memorize it, we have to continually spend time with people who believe the same things; you have to dream about those truths, you have to think about them continually, you have to read your Bible, you have to underline them, and you have to take separate notes in a journal.

You have to let that Word unfold within you, and you have to consume these truths day after day after day. You have to tell yourself: I have worth because God loves me and values me, and He sent His Son for me. And you have to seek that out in different ways in your life, and every night before going to bed you should confess these things until they begin to settle into a sediment of conviction that will nourish you when life turns a little sour, until it becomes a truth.

All these truths, these principles I am pointing out, are of no use if I simply tape them to your forehead. They have to pass through the bone of your skull and reach your brain, and become a neuron, a connection, a synapse between two cells that feeds the way you see life and the way you process life’s circumstances. We have to live that continually.

I will not allow myself to be governed by any circumstance in this world, or by the opinion of any man or woman, or by anything they give me or take away from me. I am going to fill myself with that sense of the love and affirmation of my Father, who loves me unconditionally and is committed to me one hundred percent of the time. That God does not love me less because I did not get an A on the exam; He does not love me less because I do not have the doctorate I wanted; He does not love me less because I do not have a six-bedroom house and a BMW in my garage. He loves me because I am His child, because He gave birth to me in pain on a cross—that is how it is. And the Bible is full of those principles.

Psalm 54:10: “For the mountains shall depart and the hills shall tremble, but My mercy shall not depart from you, nor shall the covenant of My peace be broken, says the Lord, who has mercy on you.” Isaiah 49:14—I tell you, the following verses are full of God’s affirmation of our worth. “But Zion said”—he is referring to His people Israel, broken and punished for their sins, who already feel as though God has abandoned them and forgotten them and no longer wants anything to do with them. And then God places these words in the minds of His people, but He is also placing them in us when we sometimes feel rejected, or feel that we have done something that means God no longer wants anything to do with us, or no longer wants to hear from me because I offended Him, or whatever.

And it says here: “But Zion said, ‘The Lord has left me, and the Lord has forgotten me.’” And the Lord says: “Can a woman forget what she gave birth to, so that she ceases to have compassion on the son of her womb? Even if she should forget, I will never forget you; remember that. Even if my father and my mother should leave me, still the Lord will take me in.” In 99.9 percent of cases, a mother does not forget what her womb gave birth to; but even if she belongs to that 0.1 percent who has forgotten, God would never forget one of His children, would never abandon them. I will never forget you.

“Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me.” Can you visualize that—God having a screen on which your life is displayed twenty-four hours a day? All day long, every minute of the day, the Lord is watching the movie called Bethany, or Meche, or Samuel, or Marina. There is a movie bearing your name, and the Lord delights in watching it all day long. Even when you are sleeping, God’s eyes are upon you, watching you breathe, watching you turn from one side of the bed to the other, seeing your nightmares, your dreams, your fears, your struggles, your flaws, your mistakes, your sins; and even so, He loves you and is committed to you because He knows that in the end you will repent and do what you have to do, and you will reach the finish line, and in the end you will be healed of everything because one day you will die and enter the heavenly homeland, and you will be such a beautiful angel that if someone saw you, they would fall to their knees before you because they would say: Wow, this is God Himself.

Remember that there is no way anyone can snatch you out of the Lord’s hand. Become independent of people, of circumstances, and even of your own mind, and live focused on what God has said about you. The only reputation that matters is the reputation you have with God, the only reputation that is worth anything. The other can be lost at any moment; one day you have it, the next day you do not; one day they are pleased with you, the next day they reject and criticize you. Do not get caught up in that little psychological game. Focus on: What does God want? What does God say? What does God think? What is God’s opinion of my life? And then you will be able to be a little happier.

May the Lord help us find our worth in God, within ourselves, and not in what a man or woman thinks. Sit upon the throne God has prepared for you and live your life looking at Him. Right now, visualize it in your mind. If you can, close your eyes for a moment and see your heavenly Father gazing at you from heaven with a benevolent smile, saying: Yes, sometimes he is a little mischievous, but he is My child, and I love him and am committed to him—or to her—every day. I am not going to reject him; I am not going to wash My hands of her; I am going to fight like a lion for her, and when anyone tries to hurt her, I will be there like a giant, ready to defend her.

God loves you; God loves me. The Lord says: “No one will be able to separate you from Me all the days of your life.” No one will be able to stand against you; neither angels, nor death, nor life, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things future, nor things to come, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Thank You, Lord; thank You because no matter what circumstances I may find myself in, I am more than a conqueror, I am exceedingly valuable, I am exceedingly precious, I have worth in You, Lord Jesus. May my brothers and sisters be completely saturated with this truth today.

And do you know that it all begins with having the Presence of Christ in your life? The seal of Jesus—that is what gives you worth; the Christ who resides within you—that is what gives you worth, the Christ who resides within you. If you do not have Christ in your heart, I encourage you this morning—this afternoon—to surrender your life to the Lord and ask Christ to dwell within your life. Why not do that right now? Invite Jesus to enter your heart.

Tell Him: Lord Jesus, I clearly understand that I do not have worth because of what I have acquired, or because of anything in this world, but because You died for me on the cross, You gave Yourself on the cross of Calvary, and because I am Your son, I am Your daughter. Enter my life, sit upon the throne of my life; I surrender my entire being to You. I want to live as a favored child of God, as a woman who has worth because Christ dwells within her.

If anyone has not made a decision for Christ Jesus this afternoon, if something in this service has touched you and you want to take a step of faith this afternoon and place your life in the Lord’s hands, I invite you to raise your hand, and we want to pray for you this afternoon. If you have not done so before and want to do it now, we open this moment to you. Is there anyone who wants to surrender their life and place it in Jesus’ hands? We invite you to do so now. We will wait a moment.