Where Does Your Value Lie?

November 16, 2015

I recently was reamed by someone who thought I shouldn’t charge for my services as a Biblical counselor/prayer minister.

The next thing I knew, I was having serious doubts about my own value. My rates are low, my experience is wide, and my ability to hear from God is deep. But was I valuable enough to charge for my time and expertise?

Time to ask God about it. His answer was powerful in its simple revelations.

He reminded me of when I was a young teen and believed my father thought that if someone wasn’t bringing funds to the family, they had no value. Therefore, I wasn’t valuable as a person.

Then He showed me a stubborn mindset: If I wasn’t perfect in my attitude and my work and my Christianity, I wasn’t valuable as a Christian.

Then He reminded me of a fear: If I didn’t have enough education and the papers to prove it, I wasn’t valuable as a minister.

So many places to find myself without value!

However, God gently reminded me of some vital truths:

• I have value just because I am His creation. A long-ago poster said it well (if ungrammatically!)—God doesn’t make no junk.

• I have value because I am His child. The Bible doesn’t say Jesus died for everybody except people who aren’t perfect.

• I have value because of my relationship with Him. When I walk in His paths, however imperfectly, He values me, loves me, and appreciates me. He already knows my weaknesses and failures. He calls me “the righteousness of God in Christ” (II Cor 5:21).

• I have value in His calling. Jesus sent His disciples out (Matthew 10:10) with the reminder that a laborer is worthy of his hire (wages). Paul says this to Timothy (I Tim 5:8), as well. This is not referring to a construction worker, but a minister. According to God, I am an able minister and am worthy of the wages He told me to ask for my labor.