In the darkest period of my life when my husband had run off with our older friend I was left feeling shattered. If the shared experiences, happiness, grief and challenges of family life over 45 years and the birth and raising of 6 children weren’t enough of an anchor to the marriage, then I felt I must be the most ugly person on the planet.
I was inconsolable but it was the words of Jesus that I was loved, chosen and to die for that carried me through that devastating time.
When you ask Jesus to be Lord of your life, you exchange your dreams, hopes and goals for His. Most significantly, you exchange your limited view of your self-worth for His all-encompassing, all-accepting, all-accepting view of you.
This is what He says about you: “It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone” (Eph. 1:11-12 Msg). God loved you unconditionally even before you were born and has plans to prosper you and give you a hope and a future (Jer. 29:11-13).
God sent His own Son, Jesus, to die for you so that you could be adopted into His own family (Eph. 1:5). C.S. Lewis put it this way: “He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less.” Jesus didn’t die because you were good or deserving, He died because of His great love: “But Christ proved God’s passionate love for us by dying in our place while we were still lost and ungodly!” (Rom. 5:8 TPT).
My message today is that if you are living a life of self-hatred, of fear of rejection, of fear of abandonment, fear of judgment, fear of failure, criticism or fear of sickness – stop! Jesus is enough!
Jesus took all of our pains and sorrows to the cross so that we can be free and live a life free from fear. This verse says it all: “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity or cowardice or fear, but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of sound judgment and personal discipline [abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control]’ (2 Tim. 1:7 Amp).