Scripture teaches that our self-worth comes from God, not from within us nor from others. Human beings are created in God’s image, which gives us inherent worth. The Bible shows that we are of so much value to God that He sent His Son to die for us while we were still sinners. Our Creator adopts us as His sons and daughters when we accept His Son as Savior (John 1:12). God gave us value by covering us in Christ’s righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). Attempting to create our own self-worth is prideful and fruitless. Self-worth based on anything other than God will not last. Unlike people, God loves us despite our outward appearance, possessions, or anything external (1 Samuel 16:7). To develop a healthy sense of self-worth, we must focus on how God sees us and the worth He places on us. He values us far more than we or others can.
“You’re worth it.” “You deserve it.” Advertisers love using slogans like that to sell us something we probably can’t afford and definitely don’t need. In truth, we’re just a marketing statistic to those advertising agencies, so they don’t know if we really “deserve” their product. But God does know us. And though we don’t deserve it, He has imbued us with self-worth by creating us in His image and giving us eternal life when we put our faith in Christ.
Today, people often base their self-worth on the things they own or the job they have or how attractive they look. The problem is that all those are temporary. When they inevitably end, so does our self-worth.
Instead of basing our sense of self on “treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19), we must root it in our Heavenly Father’s value for us. If God has deemed us valuable, who can refute that?
God loves us so much that He sent His Son to die for us so that we can have eternal life—though we don’t deserve it. The worth we have because of that is incomparable.