What Gives Us Worth In Life?

25 Feb What Gives Us Worth In Life?

There are three felt needs that motivate us.

Many counselors tell us… and rightly so, I think… that we have three felt needs that motivate us:

• Need for love: to feel unconditionally loved by someone
• Need for belonging: to feel part of a group that we identify with
• Need for competence: to feel able to do something of significance

These three things add up to give us our sense of worth. If we feel loved, if we feel we belong, if we feel we are competent, we tend to feel that we have worth.

To the degree that we do not feel loved, do not feel that we belong, do not feel that we are competent, we tend to feel unworthy.  Specifically…

• Inferiority: If we do not feel loved, we tend to feel inferior.
• Insignificance: If we do not feel we belong, we tend to feel insignificant.
• Inadequacy: If we do not feel we are competent, we tend to feel inadequate.

We naturally try to earn our sense of worth by things we can do

Because we are fallen creatures living in a fallen world, most of us struggle with these feelings of inferiority, insignificance and inadequacy. Both by nature and by nurture, we tend to try to earn our sense of worth by doing as well as we can in these three areas:

• Appearance: We may try to earn love by looking as attractive and fashionable as we can.
• Possessions: We may try to earn our sense of belonging by owning the “right stuff” that others we identify with also own.
• Accomplishments: We may try to earn a sense of competency by trying to accomplish things that others will think are important.

What if it doesn’t work?

Often our strategies don’t work.  Oscar Wilde once famously said, “There are only two tragedies in life.  One is not getting what we want.  The other is getting it.”

The point he was making, of course, is that if we don’t get what we want, we are unhappy because we didn’t get it.  And if we do get what we want, we are unhappy because we discover that it didn’t satisfy.

This often applies to our strategies to earn a sense of self-worth through our own efforts.  Sometimes we simply cannot control circumstances completely enough to get what we want in each of the three areas.  Other times, we may be able to achieve it, but discover that it doesn’t give us the sense of worth we hoped it would.

God has already given us everything we need for a sense of worth

However, God has already given us everything we need for true self-worth.

• Love: God loves us.  Because we are created in His image, we have inherent and infinite worth.  He loves us so much that Jesus lived a very hard life and died a terrible death just to make it possible for us to be reconciled to God (Romans 5:8).  God loves us because we are His creation.  He created us. We could not be more loved.
• Belonging: Through our faith in Jesus, God also has adopted us into His family (Ephesians 1:5), made us His members of His inner circle.  We belong to the most significant “group” there is… the family of God.  He delights to call us His children.
• Competence: God has preplanned good works that He wants us to do and sovereignly blesses our pursuit of them (Ephesians 2:10).  And He has given us spiritual gifts (1 Peter 4:10) so that we are capable of doing them.  We are utterly competent to do whatever God wants us to do.  If God is asking us to do it, He leads us and has equipped us to do it.  If we cannot do something, then God is not asking us to do it.

Conclusion

Everything we long for to feel worthy, God has already given us.

Our great task in life is to refocus our lives on heaven and eternal truth, rather than earth and temporal truth (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).  Our great task is to live for God, not for the world.  As we change what we are living for, we can gain increasing peace and joy and a sense of worth.  We live for what God has already given us, rather than chasing the elusive goals of appearance, possessions and accomplishments.

A starting point for refocusing our lives on heaven and eternal truth is to memorize a central passage or verse for each of these three areas affecting our sense of worth and review them every day for 30 days.

3 Verses to Memorize

• Love: “God demonstrates His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  Romans 5:8
• Belonging: “[God] predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself…” Ephesians 1:5
• Competence: “As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”  1 Peter 4:10

A 30 day review plan is a good starting point, but remember: Repetition is the key to mental ownership! If something is important, it must be repeated until it changes you. I’ve written about the importance of this many times, including here, If Meditation Is So Good For You, How Do You Do It?, with some practical how to tips.

And if you haven’t already downloaded it, my short video, Master the Bible So Well That the Bible Masters You, has some additional helpful tips on memorizing and meditating on scripture and is still currently free to my email subscribers by signing up here. 

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