New Life Fact 1
NEW LIFE FACT I
BELIEVE YOU ARE VALUABLE AS GOD’S CREATION
YOU ARE CREATED in God’s image to share His life, love, purpose and creative plan. You are therefore infinitely valuable to Him. He is saying to you, right now: “I love you. I created my best when I created you. I paid a price for you and you are worth all I ever paid for you. I have destined my best for you.
God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. In the likeness of God he created male and female.2</p>
God made nothing inferior. He is first class all the way. He created you unique. You are exceptional —one-of-a-kind Before you were born, you existed in God’s mind. He knew this world would need you at this time. He planned you with a special purpose that no one but you could fulfil because no one on earth could do what you are here to do. Your God-given value does not depend on special genes from superior parents. Your worth before God is not measured by your assets, the colour of your skin, super intelligence or formal education. All sorts of miracles start happening when you discover and accept your value and your potential.
The Bible says, You are God’s workmanship.3 The man who wrote most of the Psalms was wonder-struck by how God made human persons. The Lord made people a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor4 (K.J.V. a little lower than the angels. The original Hebrew word used is “Elohim” — God, as used in Ge.1:l.)
The Lord gave them dominion over the works of his hands; he put all things under their feet.5
The bottom line of positive and stable self-esteem is when you can say: “I accept the value that God has put on me. When you do that, you will then cooperate with God to develop the best possible you in this world.
Self-value will rid you of all jealousy because you will never again want to be anyone else.6
Self-value will wipe out inferiority because you are in God’s class of being and He, in you, is greater than any person or any power outside of you.7
Self-value will eliminate fear of failure or defeat because nothing can stop you and God working together.8
Self-value will give you courage because you discover that with God at work in you, you become indomitable.9
Self-value will cause you to stand up tall, to square your shoulders, to look out into the future with new confidence, to walk with a steady stride, and to rise to the level of importance for which God created you. ‘
God created human persons as much like Himself as any child can be like its natural parents.
God planned that whatever could be said about Him, could be said about you.’
God never planned you or me for poverty, inferiority, sickness, depression, want or insecurity. 12
God never created anything inferior — not you —not any human person.’3
As this powerful principle takes root, you begin to see and respect yourself as a member of divine royalty. 14
God’s family is supposed to represent Him and to reflect His lifestyle on earth. Recognise your value. When you do, you cause the seeds of greatness to germinate in you.’5 Keep those seeds watered by thinking on them and reaffirming your value until your attitude and conduct are transformed.
Now say this to God, out loud.
I RECOGNIZE my value, that You created me in Your own image and likeness. Whatever can be said about You can be said about me as Your offspring.
My life is Your very breath — Your life in human form. Your best material is in me. I am the product of love. Tam created for greatness, crowned with glory and honour, to have dominion over all of Your works.
THANK YOU, LORD. I have had a rebirth of self-worth. Knowing that I am created in Your image and likeness reminds me of my divine origin, of my high purpose, of my infinite value.
I shall never again depreciate the me that You value so much. I shall never again put down what You have lifted up. I am not a nobody. I am a real somebody.
AMEN!
NEW LIFE FACT II
KNOW THAT DISTRUSTING GOD’S WORD IS THE ORIGINAL AND BASIC PROBLEM
GOD’S DREAM for humanity is recorded in the Bible book of Genesis. His plan was to reproduce Himself in Adam and Eve and to have companionship with them.
But their friendship had to be two-way. God would need to be sure that Adam and Eve wanted Him, like He wanted them. They were not required or forced to respect Him any more than you are.
God placed them in the garden of Eden and gave them every tree that is pleasant to the eye and good for food; and the tree of life also in the midst of the garden.’</p>
The only condition: Since they were created in God’s image, to share His lifestyle, they were to trust what
He said. God made one single restriction to measure their faith and confidence in His dream for them. He said:
Of every tree of the garden you may free/v eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.2
They were expected to have confidence in what God said and that is all that He expects of you and me.
Satan, God’s enemy, heard of God’s dream and conceived a scheme to induce Adam and Eve to betray
God’s trust.
Satan came into the garden.3 He contradicted God, asserting himself as an authority, and said: If you eat of
that tree, you will not surely die.4
Eve took of the fruit and ate it, and gave some to her husband with her; and he ate it.
That was the original sin — distrusting God’s word.
Say this to God.
PRAYER:
LORD, now I understand why faith is so important. That is all You ask of me — just to believe
Your word.
I now realise that lack of confidence in Your word was the original sin. Your friendship and companionship with me depend on our mutual trust. You want to know that I desire Your company and Your lifestyle, just like You have proven that You desire mine, And the only way I can prove my affection for You is to trust what You say.
I have not done that hi the past. I now realise why I have had to walk alone. I have played into the enemy’s hands by abusing the trust of life You placed in me.
WITH THE KNOWLEDGE of this basic problem, I come to You, 0 Lord, convinced that Your word and Your way is the only basis for the abundant and blessed life You created me for.
From today, my choice shall always be to totally trust in Your living word.
AMEN!
Bible References
Gen 2:9; Gen 3:1; Gen 3:6; Gen 2:16-17; Ge.3:4
NEW LIFE FACT III
UNDERSTAND THAT DISAVOWING GOD’S INTEGRITY RESULTS IN DEATH</p>
GOD’S ORIGINAL DREAM for Adam and Eve was that if they trusted in His integrity, they would live and prosper with Him forever If they abused His trust and disbelieved His word, the process of deterioration would begin and they would die. After Adam and Eve rejected God’s trust, He came into the garden and spelled out what the results would
There would be no grounds for a relationship with God. Adam and Eve had exercised their free wills and had, by their action, disregarded and disbelieved what God had said. The good life ended. Dignity was desecrated.
God said, in the day that you disavow my instructions and eat the fruit I forbade, you will surely die.’</p>
Without trust in God’s integrity, human persons sink into despair and disgrace, degeneration and disease,
destruction and oblivion, deterioration and death. Their lack of trust in the integrity of what God said was later called sin. The simple rule that God made was: The person who sins will die. 2
Later it was repeated in another way: The wages of sin (disavowing the integrity of God’s word) is death.3
Adam and Eve were no longer qualified to dwell in the garden with God. Separated from His plenty and beyond His protection, they were now subject to their new master who came to steal, to kill and to destroy4
That was the beginning of suffering, disease, pain, hate, lust, envy, murder, jealousy, loneliness, guilt, poverty, hunger, destruction and death.
Sin had entered the human race. It would be passed on to all generations. Whereas, by one person sin entered into the world, and death by sin so death passed upon all persons, for that all have sinned.5
The fundamental sin that severed God’s relationship with mankind was not murder or adultery or lying or stealing or hatred or abuse. It was the assumption or philosophy or attitude that God did not mean what He said. When that position is taken, deterioration sets in like a cancer and is terminal. When you do not trust God, you do not trust yourself, or anyone else. When you decide that God has no integrity, your own integrity is abandoned. Conscience is callused. Dignity is desecrated. The human person deteriorates and dies. Honour is gone. The lights go out. There is only darkness.
Say this to God.
PRAYER:
DEAR LORD, I thank You for helping me to understand the final consequences of unbelief in Your word.
Now I realise why the wages of sin is death. I now understand that the original and the ultimate sin is to disavow Your integrity, to disbelieve Your word. When I do that, my own dignity as a human created like You is repudiated. If I do not believe in You, I do not believe in me. Excellence is bartered for mediocrity. Deterioration sets in like a terminal disease, and I die.
0 GOD, I thank You for helping me to realise that, since I am created by You, the God of faith, I can experience Your lifestyle and know true living by believing in Your integrity. Your word is Your bond. You intended for words to weld society together in mutual trust and interrelationships. But when faith in Your integrity was abandoned, human life crumbled and fell apart. The lack of integrity turned inward, and the divine dignity of God’s creation died.
I THANK YOU, Lord, that Your dream for me is so beautiful. You created me to live on Your level. Confidence in Your word and Your way is the bond that unites me with You. I now realise that the integrity of Your word is the foundation of real life as You planned it for me. I do, here and now, honour Your word and pledge myself to trust what You say. And I believe that this faith will lead me to the discovery of the abundant life You originally created me to enjoy. AMEN!
Bible References
Gen 2:17; Eze 4:20; Rom 6:23; Joh 10:10; Rom 5:12
NEW LIFE FACT IV
BELIEVE THAT GOD LOVED AND VALUED YOU TOO MUCH TO LET YOU DIE</p>
GOD NEVER ABANDONED His dream for you. God is love and love never quits.
His love went into action the day Adam and Eve sinned. He found a just and legal way to restore humankind back to an intimate relationship with Him. Although they disavowed His integrity and disbelieved His word, God did not want His beautiful creation to deteriorate and die. And He does not want you to despair and decay in self-destruction and the shame of indignity. He says: I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies, so turn yourself and live.
God was not willing that any should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance.2
God so loved the world that he gave his, only be gotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.3 But God showed his great love for you by sending Christ to die for you.4
It is vital that you realise how much God values you. He created you in His likeness and you are significant and pre-eminent to His plan. He made you for life, love, power, prosperity, success, honour and dignity. The seeds of greatness are in you. You are created in God’s class of being.
God’s whole dream is reflected in you. He loved and valued you too much to let you self-destruct.
When you learn to esteem what God esteems and value what He values, then you are ready to comprehend God’s salvation plan for you and to re-evaluate your own life by the measure of what He has paid to redeem you from death.
Your life is God’s life in human flesh. Recognise your roots in God and your value to God. You are His product. His best is in you.
Say this to God.
O LORD, I thank You for loving me when I did not esteem my own self. Thank You for placing such a high value on me. Though I abused Your trust of life in me and disavowed Your integrity, You valued me too much to let me die in my sins.
Although I deserved deterioration and death, Your love reached out to find a way to save me and to redeem me to Yourself so that we could he friends and partners in life like You originally planned.
Because You are love, You never take pleasure in seeing even the most rebellious and destructive person deteriorate and die. You value me so much that, to have me near You as a friend and a partner, You prefer to pay the full penalty of my sins, in order to justify me and to redeem me.
DEAR GOD, thank You for Your love for me. Knowing how You value me, I am learning to value myself. I respond to Your love and, here and now, I sincerely thank You for reaching out in love to save me and to lift me out of death, into Your abundant life.
AMEN!