Journey into Lightl

I have always wanted to be important. For the most part, I haven’t regarded myself as that important because there were usually enough others that could outperform in an area that I was using to measure my worth.

If it wasn’t being too short, it was not being outgoing enough. If it wasn’t amassing as much power as someone else, it was not being as smart as some brain in the class.

There always seemed to be a reason to hinder my sense of being important.

I am sure that you struggle with being important too. Maybe we are not important?

Yet, God says, “[I] have made [you] a little lower than [Me], and have crowned [you] with glory and majesty” (Psalm 8:4-5, brackets added).

What? I am important? Based on what?

Based on how God sees us. Not based on being the brightest bulb in the package. Not based on being the best looking. And not based on being the wealthiest person in the graduating class.

What makes us important for all time is that that we are important to God. These are some things he says to us about how important we are to him:

• “You are precious” (Isaiah 43:4)

• “Let us make [you] like us, according to our likeness” (Genesis 1:26, brackets added)

• “[I] see [your] ways and number all [your] steps” (Job 31:4, brackets added))

• “You did not choose Me, but I chose you” (John 15:16)

• “See how great a love [i have] bestowed upon you that you should be called [My child] (1 John 3:1, brackets added)

• Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that [I live] in you” (1 Corinthians 3:16, brackets added)

• “He who touches you, touches the apple of [My] eye” (Zechariah 2:8, brackets added)

• “The very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Luke 12:7)

So, if we are important to God, what difference does it make?

It makes a big difference! We can quit striving to be important and learn to rest in being as important as we will ever be.

You may say, “This is sheer nonsense. Surely, my getting promoted, having a great family, and being well-known and respected makes me more important.”

No it doesn’t.

Not in God’s eyes it doesn’t. And he is the One who determines how important we are, not what you and others think. “So we have stopped evaluating others [and our self] from a human point of view” (2 Corinthians 5:16, NLT, brackets added).

Because we are important, another difference is that “we have bold and confident access” (Ephesians 3:12) to God at anytime. We were important enough that Jesus died on the cross to make this access a reality.

A third difference being important has is that God wants to make us like himself and to use us to work alongside him in changing the world. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

So let’s accept the fact that we are important! And that will never change. Thank God for his gift of importance!