You’re not worthy

You’re not worthy

You don’t deserve God’s love

Whilst you might be a touch surprised to be hearing this from me, you’re probably not surprised by the statement itself. You have heard it over and over and over again, and most likely you agree with it.

But are we really unworthy or is that just what we have been taught to believe? It’s certainly what I have been taught by every Church I’ve been in. You’re not worthy of God’s love. But is it really true? Listen to what you are thinking right now. It’s important. Stop for a moment and really reflect on what’s going through your mind. I would guarantee that the vast majority of you are thinking that by challenging the notion of our unworthiness, I am in fact beginning to hint at the possibility of worthiness.

But that’s not what I want to do at all. I don’t want to do that because I don’t think we are worthy of God’s love – it’s just that I don’t think that we are not worthy either!

Now, how can that be? Well, I’m glad you asked!

Inherent in the statement “I am not worthy of God’s love” is a particular belief. A belief without which, the statement makes no logical sense whatsoever. And it is this: That it is possible to be worthy of love. That love can be earned, or merited, or deserved. For if it cannot, we can’t be worthy of it nor can we be unworthy of it. And this is true of genuine love – it cannot be deserved. It cannot be earned. It cannot be merited.

But why not? It’s because genuine love, true love, is unconditional.

Conditional love says ‘I love you, if…’ If you look pretty, if you keep the house clean, if you wear the right clothes or do the right things. I love you if you treat me a particular way. Conditional love is on a treasure hunt. It seeks to love that which has great beauty or worth. When you love a person conditionally, you are really not loving them at all. You are loving how they look or what they do.

The opposite of this treasure hunt love is unconditional love. Rather than seeking to love that which has great beauty or worth, this is love that creates beauty or worth in that which it loves. There is no ‘if’ in unconditional love. There is simply ‘I love you’. You need never fear that I will take my love away from you. There is nothing you have to do to get my love. And there is nothing you can do to lose my love. There is no fine print in the contract because love isn't a contract.

When I attach conditions to love, I am no longer offering you a gift; I am only offering an exchange. And true love must always be a free gift.

This is how God loves us – unconditionally. This is why we can have rest, and peace, and assurance – God does not have to be conditioned into loving us. He just loves us. Loves us exactly how we are right now, imperfections and all.

Some time ago I was chatting with a Christian fellow about the unconditional love of God. And the most amazing thing happened – he actually tried to convince me that God loves us unconditionally once we have become Christians! I re-phrased what he was saying in an effort to show him the absurdity of it. I said to him, “You have just told me that God loves us without conditions, on the condition that we become believers.” In a testimony to the power of preconceived mindsets preventing us from seeing the completely obvious, my friend still could not see that what he was saying was completely contradictory!

How can it be unconditional if there is a condition to getting it?

Love is not earned. Love cannot be merited in any way. It can’t be deserved, because it is a freely given gift, freely given to the one whom is loved. As such, it is logically incoherent to suggest that someone is worthy of love. Love isn’t dispensed on worthiness, it’s just given away completely blind to any worth at all.

That explains the ‘unconditional’ part of unconditional love – but what about the ‘love’ part? What is love really about? It might seem a silly question with an obvious answer, but I think, as a society, we are confused about what love is. We have a strong positive passion about something and we call it love. But love is not merely a feeling of happiness or a sickly sweet emotion that we write country music about.

Emotions are extremely powerful things. God wired us up to be emotional creatures. From burning anger to warm affection and delirious delight, our emotions can create enormous problems for us or spur us to heroic action and sacrifice.

But love is more than a feeling or an emotion. In fact, whilst love is accompanied by many varied feelings and emotions, it isn’t a feeling at all; it is something that is done. As DC Talk, Dr. Gary Chapman and many others have said, love is a verb.

Eric Fromm in “The Art of Loving” says "Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go….Love isn't something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice."

In Mark chapter 12 when Jesus was asked, ‘What is the greatest commandment’? He replied by saying love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. If love for God and others is the greatest commandment, then love is not an emotion. You can’t command emotions.


In Matthew 5, Jesus even told us to love our enemies. He doesn’t expect us to have warm, fuzzy feelings for that guy who cut you off in traffic this morning. He isn’t telling us how to feel. He’s telling us how to act.

So if love is not a feeling and is instead something that is done, what exactly is it that is done?

Psychiatrist Dr. Harry Stack Sullivan says that when the happiness, security and well-being of another person is as important to you as your own happiness, security and well-being, then you love that person. In short, love is to work in the best interest of another, to have a positive impact on another’s life.

1 Corinthians 13 speaks essentially the same message, describing love as patient, kind, forgiving, truthful, trustworthy and eternal.


When I got married many years ago, the Minister gave a terrific piece of advice. He suggested, whenever I felt angry or uptight, replacing the word ‘love’ in 1 Corinthians 13 with myself. No longer did it read “Love is patient, love is kind, etc” It now read, “I am patient. I am kind. I am not proud, I am not easily angered. I keep no record of wrongs.” It is very challenging but also very helpful.

It describes an unconditional love, and unconditional love is the only true love, and it is the way that God loves us. God says to us, I love you. I have given you my love, and I will always love you. You are free to walk away and ignore my love, but I will never stop loving you, and I will welcome you home no matter how long it takes for you to come.

God’s word to us is - My love for you is unconditional, it has no strings attached, it isn't a contact - it is a gift and it's yours, forever. Even if you leave me, my love goes on.

You can even replace the word ‘love’ in 1 Corinthians 13 with ‘God’. It gives a wonderfully easy to see yet profoundly deep vision of God.

God is patient, God is kind. God does not envy, does not boast, is not proud. God does not dishonor others, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, and keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. God never fails.

So, are we worthy of God’s love? Of course not! But that doesn’t make us unworthy of His love either. For love is not measured by worth. Love is not merited. Love is given. God is love, and He loves you without limits. May you find peace and rest in the assurance of His love.

Self Esteem

You can't touch it, but it affects how you feel. You can't see it, but it's there when you look at yourself in the mirror. You can't hear it, but it's there every time you talk about yourself. What is this important but mysterious thing? It's your self-esteem!

We hear a lot in our culture today about self esteem, self image, self confidence, self worth etc. All of these things are really just different ways of saying the same thing. It’s all about how we view ourselves.

It is a universally accepted truth in psychology and psychiatry today, that a person’s self image is foundational to their behaviour. You operate out of, and make decisions from, your beliefs about yourself.

A close relationship has been documented between low self-esteem and such problems as violence, alcoholism, drug abuse, eating disorders, school dropouts, teenage pregnancy, suicide, and low academic achievement.

Self-esteem isn't bragging about how great you are. It's more like quietly knowing that you're worth a lot (priceless, in fact!). It's not about thinking you're perfect - because nobody is - but it’s about knowing that you're worthy of being loved and accepted.

If I were to suggest to you that the most important thing you can do is to love someone else, you probably would agree with me. But it might seem strange to you if I would suggest that the most important thing you can do is to love yourself. But that’s exactly what I am suggesting.

Your whole capacity to love others and to find God in a loving relationship is dependant on whether or not you love yourself. Almost all Christian psychologists agree that when Jesus said “Love your neighbour as yourself”, that can be effectively re-worded as “Love yourself and you will love your neighbour”. Of course the opposite is also true, hate yourself and you will hate your neighbour also. It’s almost like the human person is a bowl, and whatever fills you is going to spill out onto other people.

So if your happy within yourself, if there’s a sense of self esteem, a real sense of self celebration, of self appreciation, you’ll be a loving person because you’ll be free to go out and love other people. If you don’t love yourself then you wont go out you’ll use other people and you’ll always be looking around for someone who can fill your emptiness.

I am not suggesting that you be selfish. I must make the point that a selfish person and a person who loves himself are two totally different people. A selfish person thinks only of himself but a person who loves himself is someone who is free to love others.

Every one of us, I believe, has a pain inside that keeps us from really loving, and the way you get it is by losing confidence un your own worth. And you lose confidence in your own worth when you are loved only conditionally. There are two kinds of love, conditional and unconditional, and unconditional love is the only kind of love that really helps anybody. In fact I would like to say that it is the only genuine love at all.

Conditional love says I love you if…if you keep the house clean, if you look pretty, if you get grades in school, if you love me back, if you treat me well.

Unconditional love says…I love you no matter what. I am your man. I am for you. I am on your side no matter what happens. No matter what you do or what you say, I am on your side.

With conditional love, my worth isn’t in me, it is in my performance…my worth is in what I can do for you.

With unconditional love, my worth is in me. I am loved and valued for who I am and not what I can do.

There is an old movie called ‘Butterflies are free’. And in that movie a young woman played by Goldie Hawn is having a love affair with a blind man played by Eddie Albert.

Goldie Hawn is breaking up with Eddie and when he quizzes her ‘why are you leaving me?’ she replies ‘I’m just tired of you, that’s all’. He asks ‘doesn’t anyone ever get tired of you?’ And she says ‘I don’t know, I never hang around long enough to find out. Besides, your crippled.’

And Eddie says to her ‘Oh no. I’m not crippled. I’m only sightless. You are crippled. You are crippled because you can’t commit to anybody. You are cripple because you cant put your life on the line. You can’t make a wager of your life. You have no person to call home. I’m only sightless, you’re crippled’.

Unconditional love is what a person needs if they are going to come into the fullness of life. When you start pulling those conditional levers – I’ll love you when – I’ll love you if – I’ll love you until – you’re not loving me, your using me. You are loving my success, or my money, or my good looks – if I had any - or my ability to do whatever.

But you’re not loving me, your loving what I can offer you, and that just leads to emptiness and internal pain and turmoil.

Now the emptiness that comes from being loved only conditionally ought to be filled with a sense of self celebration and self love, a contend ness deep within your soul regarding the person you are.

I don’t know if any of you are struggling with this, but very often people say that to have self love or self celebration is to be proud and conceited and so we should avoid these things. But that’s not right at all. When Jesus Christ says love your neighbour as yourself, He’s strongly implying that you must love yourself.

If you hate yourself and you love your neighbour that way, you wont treat them very well will you? No you must love yourself to love your neighbour. I don’t know how this self rejection bit got into Christian doctrine. I’m bad I'm bad I'm awful. Your not awful. Are you glad to be you? I you really are, if your really comfortable within yourself, if there’s no civil war raging within you, of self hatred and push pull, you will love other people. You’ll be a very loving person, because you don’t have that internal pain to distract you and to magnetise your attention.

If you are not happy with who you are, if there is a civil war raging inside of you, you simply won’t have the ability to reach out to others in genuine love – all you can do is reach out in need.

I have said that these thoughts on self esteem are universally accepted truths. What is more difficult for some people to accept however, is that the image that each of has of himself or herself, is really the product of what other people have told us about ourselves. The truth is that we see ourselves reflected in the eyes of those around us. The deepest need of every person is acceptance, particularly self acceptance. Each one of us desperately needs to see in the mirror of another’s eyes, our own goodness, our own worth, our own beauty and our own acceptance – if we are to be truly free.