The first speaker we had the pleasure of hearing was Holley Gerth, an author who I felt really spoke with God's heart for his people in mind. You can check her out at holleygerth.com
She shared 5 points about how God can work in you and through you in the middle of the darkest times in your life. She shared that she herself had just gone through a dark place and through it learned more about God's truth, who he is and how he can use those dark times to refine us to be a better version of ourselves. I'll be sharing each of the points separately so that I can keep the posts short and easy to read.
1. "Your heart needs to know nothing can change your worth in God's eyes."
I love this point especially because many times when I've made mistakes I almost try to beat the imperfections out of myself by mentally berating myself. That is the opposite of what we need. We need to know that our personal self-worth is not dependent upon our compliance with God's laws. Jesus took that requirement away from us when we believed that he died for our freedom. As Romans says, this doesn't mean that we then purposefully break whatever rules we want, but rather, we seek to follow HIS EXAMPLE of loving God and others rather than checking of a list of rules we follow diligently.
"When you count something, you are finding the worth (something of value) and chose to believe something good can come from it." - God counts us as part of his family. He sees us in our entirety and finds the worth in us. He KNOWS that something good can come from us. He knows that because he made us and saw all the days of our lives and still chose to die for each and every one of us.
"Your circumstances refine you - they do not define you. It's not where you are, but who you are [that matters]." - I love this quote so much because so often I find myself often naming myself based on my mistakes. I say things in my head like, "I am selfish," "I am prideful," or "I am ______." (Fill in the blank - I've probably said it all!) When I do that I am removing from myself my true identity in Jesus Christ and I am saying that His sacrifice wasn't powerful enough to save me. BUT LET ME ASK YOU THIS, how can I say that I am so great, or my mistakes are so big that The One who created the universe, hung the stars in the heaven and knit me together in my mother's womb cannot fix me?? The truth is I'm not so broken that his sacrifice was insufficient. I am not so worthless that he didn't think of me when he died. I am not impossible to save. Therefore, I need to every day claim my identity as a co-heir with Jesus. Do I deserve it? Absolutely not. I'm not suppose to deserve it. If that was possible, then why would Jesus have died in the first place. No, I, broken and used... Me, constantly making mistakes... This person right here, who can't seem to do most things right... And you right there... WE ARE WORTH SAVING AND SALVAGEABLE BECAUSE OF WHAT HE DID ON THE CROSS. I will count myself as His and I will daily remind myself of that truth so that I can continue to share the Love of Jesus with others and make sure that they know it's not because of anything I've done, but because of what he first did for me.