You Matter. Yes, You!预览

Personal value is not to be confused with self-esteem or feelings of significance. While both of the latter weigh heavily on performance, personal value rests more deeply within. Our sense of personal value can be hindered by feelings of shame, guilt, and regret. These three things can destroy a mind’s perception of personal value, sometimes instantaneously.

Our enemy likes nothing more than increasing our feelings of shame and guilt because those emotions drive us from the presence of God. They don’t drive God from us, but rather us from Him. Take for example Adam and Eve in the garden. You can recall what they did when their eyes were opened and they realized their nakedness. This man and woman, in their shame, literally tried to hide from God.

There are many reasons why we would try to hide from God in the midst of shame, guilt, and regret. One of those reasons is that we may feel He doesn’t love us anymore. Another is that we fear the consequences we intuitively know come tied to the things that cause shame and guilt. A third reason we seek to hide from the Lord is illustrated by the prophet Isaiah, who stood before God in His throne room and mouthed the words, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6:5). We hide because of God’s holiness.

But God has something very important to say about our personal value. Let's look at that in the next reading entry.