The Truth

I have a confession to make.  Once, in a Bible study, I started a fight.  Not on purpose.  But it was a real fight, and I mean the kind of fight where people stand up and shout.  My friend said later, "I was afraid we were going to have to call someone to come and get the kids."

Now, I know what you're thinking.  What on earth could get people so riled up in a Bible study that there would be that kind of behavior?  Well, I'm going to tell you.  Many times, in a Bible study group, people will use a study book or watch a teaching video, and at this particular study, we were watching a video by a very well-known and highly respected Bible teacher.  I'm not going to tell you his name, because I'm just about to say some things he would find extremely disagreeable.

In this video, the preacher who shall not be named was teaching that we--humans--need to learn that we do not have inherent value.  In other words, it's very important that we understand that we are not valuable in and of ourselves.  We're not actually valuable, unlike real valuable things such as gold, for example.  In fact, we have no inherent value at all.  The only reason we could consider ourselves of any worth is because God, in his infinite mercy, has decided to assign us value, despite our complete and total worthlessness.

You may have heard that before, especially if you have spent much time around Christians or the church.  You have probably heard that about God.  How he is so loving and merciful that he loves us in spite of how disgusting and sinful we are.  That he accepts us, even though we are not acceptable.  That he values us, even though he knows that we are worthless.  What I would like to suggest to you, and the thing I "suggested" that night that started such a heated disagreement, is that this is a giant load of crap.

Now before anyone gets all excited, or any shouting has time to get started, hear me out.   I know someone is already dying to ask if I'm suggesting that God doesn't love us in spite of our sins.  I can clear that right up for you.  I'm not suggesting it.  I'm saying it outright.

Let me ask you to think about it this way.  If you are a parent, think about your children for a moment.  Really think about them.  About all the things that make them unique and special, about all the ways they are different.  About how each one of them is your own, and how you know them like no one else, and how you have your own love for each of them.  And when you think of them, with all their quirks, and faults, and flaws--even though, let's be honest, sometimes we want to kill them--when you think of your own special dear ones, how could any of us say that we love them in spite of their failings?  Or would we say, instead, that we love them with those things?  Of course we don't love the failings themselves, or the weaknesses and brokenness that we see in our children that we know will hurt them.  And we hope they will grow through those things, and conquer those things, and we work with them, help them, guide them, support them to do that.  But we love them, with all those things as a part of them, as a part of what makes them the unique creations they are at this moment in time.  Not in spite of those things.

We have fallen for a lie about God.  We have fallen for the lie that he accepts us reluctantly.  That he looks at us as worthless, but agrees to take us on anyway, simply because of his own goodness.  We have acted as if our sins make us repulsive to him, but that he holds his nose and takes us in.  We have taught ourselves to believe that is spiritual, even Biblical.  We have called it "humility," and "not thinking too much of ourselves."  And I'm sorry, but this is NOT what God tells us.

God tells us that he loves us as we are, that we have worth to him, that we are valuable as we are.  He loves us not in spite of our sin, but with it.  I know that right away someone is going to object, and start talking about how much God hates sin, and how he is a holy God, and so on and so forth.  But the fact is, I haven't disagreed with that.  I'm not talking about how God feels about sin.  I'm just talking about how God feels about us.  And how he feels about sin doesn't change that.

We have such a hard time with this, we struggle with this.  I believe it's because that lie speaks to something deep within us.  We know our own failings all too well.  It's too easy to believe in our own flaws, our own inadequacy, our own insecurities.  It's much harder to believe in being the Beloved.  So hard, in fact, that we want to push back against it, find "evidence" against it--some apparently even find it worth actually fighting over.

But you see, that's the message of the Bible.  From the very beginning, when God made us in his own image, proclaiming that his creation was thoroughly good, through the Psalmist's celebration of how we are each fearfully and wonderfully made, to Paul's affirmation to the Ephesians that we are God's own workmanship, God tells us that we are far from worthless, have never been worthless.  Quite the opposite.  In  Deuteronomy 7:6  (I know, I know, who looks at Deuteronomy?  Try it just this once, it won't hurt you.),  God says that he's chosen us to be a people for his own possession.  You will find it again in Deuteronomy 26:18 (OK, so I lied.  Look there twice.), where it tells us that we're his people, a treasured possession.  Again, in Titus 2:14, we hear that we're a people for his own possession.  Now, in English, that might not seem like much.  But in the language of the Bible, in each of those texts, the words that are used are words that mean a king's most valuable treasure--his special, prized, most beloved possession.  Did you hear that?  I am his special possession, not his special project.  His most treasured, valuable Beloved.  Me.  With my big mouth, and my proud heart, and my muffin top.  With all my faults and flaws, all my shame, and the mistakes and failures of my past, and the ones of my present, and of my future.  Me, just as I am, I'm the Beloved, and so are you.

And what does that mean for our being less valuable than something like gold that supposedly has "inherent value"?  I'll gladly tell you.  First of all, inherent value is an oxymoron and a lie.  Value is ALWAYS externally assigned.  Gold, like any other gem or metal, is nothing but a rock.  It's a rock that has been assigned a changing value by different cultures over time.  The value is constantly in flux, just like that of any other substance.  One of the most famous stories of the Bible is about a woman who poured some very expensive perfume on Jesus' feet, an ointment called nard.  The whole point of the story is about the incredibly high value of her gift.  Suppose I told you that I have a five-gallon bucket of nard sitting next to me right now.  Would you give me a quarter for it?  I didn't think so.  The assigned value of all these things changes, when the conditions or people that determine their value change.  But our value is assigned by God.  He is the one who says that we have worth, that we are precious, and guess what?  He will never go out of power, or go out of fashion, or go out of date.  He will never change his mind.  So our value as the Beloved, while externally assigned, is assigned by one who has existed since before time, will exist for all eternity, and is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  And that is the closest thing to inherent value there will ever be in this world.  It leaves gold, diamonds, nard, and everything else in the dust.  We are the Beloved, and that is the most valuable thing there is.  Period.

At this point, you may be starting to think I sound pretty full of myself.  I seem to be pretty excited about how great God thinks I am.  I understand your concern.  We all have a tendency to go too far in one direction or another, and we all know some people who have done that.  They are pretty sure that God loves them just a bit more than the rest of us.  That he thinks they are perfect, just the way they are.   Some have even made the serious error of calling that spiritual, even Biblical.  They've called it "confidence," and "righteousness," and "claiming our blessing," when in fact, it's simple pride.  But let me reassure you, that's not what it means to be the Beloved either.  Because when you know what it means to be the Beloved, you understand that it is ALL of us, and it's through nothing special that you have done.  I'm going to quote one of my favorite preachers now, my preacher, Randy Boltinghouse, who gave one of the best explanations I've ever heard of how, when you know you are the Beloved, you won't go one way or the other.  You will have both true humility and true confidence.  Here's how he described what that will look like:  "I don't think more of myself, and I don't think less of myself.  I think of myself less."

And that last bit brings me, finally, to why all this is so important.  Because that's the real question, isn't it?  Why does this matter?  And I want to assure you, it does matter, and it matters a great deal.  There's a Catholic theologian I love, named Henri Nouwen, who has written extensively about this subject, and he says that "being the Beloved is the core truth of our existence."  That's a big claim.  But I believe it's true, and here's why.  Because the message of the gospel, the message God has for you and me, is the message of reconciliation.  "Reconciliation" just means "getting right."  It means getting right first with God and ourselves, and then with others around us.  Getting right with God and with ourselves has to happen before we are able to get right with anyone else, and I mean anyone.  And getting right with God and with ourselves means understanding who we are as God's Beloved.  That's the road to freedom.

If we cannot understand and accept ourselves as the Beloved, we will never be able to move to that place of freedom where every interaction doesn't have to be about us.  We will never be able to get past our insecurities and our anxieties with our co-workers, our family members, our friends, our kids, and our partners.  Every difficult parenting moment will have to be filled with the fear that we have lost our kids' affection, or our offended pride that they have disrespected us.  Every exchange with friends will have to be motivated by our insecurity about whether we will experience their acceptance or their rejection.  Every day that we spend, either in a happy romance, or out of one, will have to be experienced as a measure of our own worth and desirability.

We will never be able to receive the love that is offered by the people in our lives without questioning its authenticity.  We will never be able to offer true love in return, because we won't be able to set aside our own insecurity and fear of rejection and risk making ourselves vulnerable to others.  We won't be able to give to our families, our friends, our children, our lovers, with the best we have to offer, because we will not have that true confidence and humility that lets us think of them first and ourselves less.  And that would be a tragedy, because we are all, all of us, more than that.

So here is what I'd like to say to you.  No matter how spiritual it sounds, no matter how your sneaky heart may whisper to you that it is true.  No matter who may have said it to you before, even if it was your mother, or your teacher, or a preacher on a Bible teaching video.  Please.  Don't buy the lie.  No one may have ever told you this before, but you can begin right now, from this moment, to know that you are the Beloved.  You can think like it, act like it, live like it.  Because that is who you are.  And that's the truth.