YOU CAN’T BE WORTHY, SO BE FAITHFUL

Most Christians struggle with feelings of unworthiness. Let’s face it-we all have a sinful past. For some it is worse than others. A while back, I was speaking with a man about God’s blessings and his reply was that he just didn’t think he deserved for God to bless him. I am glad that God doesn’t give us what we deserve, because the fact is none of us really measure up to God’s standards, and what we deserve is judgment.
Actually, there is nothing that we can do in ourselves to change this. We cannot go back and change our past, and undo what we have already done. But, oh thanks be unto God, He gives us grace through Jesus Christ. We deserve judgment but He gives us forgiveness when we turn to Christ.
The Apostle Paul understood he was not worthy in himself. He said “But by the grace of God I am what I am”. Some of the great men of God in the Bible made some serious mistakes, but God forgave them and gave them grace. Moses murdered a man. David committed adultery. Peter denied the Lord. Paul persecuted the church. The point is, each of these men found grace and forgiveness when they repented of their sins and turned to God.
God does not look at our worthiness - He looks at our faith. I don’t recall reading anywhere in the Gospels where Jesus asked if they deserved His healing, or blessing. The thing that really stands out to me is that He asked them, “Do you believe”.
Real faith will cause us to change. A person cannot really believe in the Christ and not be submissive to Him. Those that mentally acknowledge Christ, but never come to the place where they truly surrender their lives to Him are counted as unbelievers.
We can never be worthy in ourselves; God is the one that takes care of that by cleansing us from our sins. But we can be faithful! This is really what God is concerned about – our faithfulness. Jesus speaking to the church of Smyrna in Revelation said “be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” The Apostle Paul said in I Timothy that the Lord counted him faithful and put him in the ministry.
We should not be concerned about feelings of whether we deserve God’s blessings or not. God blesses us according to His goodness, not ours. We do need to concern ourselves about our faithfulness though. Romans 1:17 says “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.”