Today’s message summary of February 5, 2017 from Pastor Gus Brown:
We’re moving back into the study of building the family. God is the One who does the work in building and shaping the person, and this applies within the family, as well.
Every dream that you have requires sacrifice in order to bring it into existence, and it involves yielding to the Father according to His will. Sacrifice is giving up something good to get something even better.
A person should always have the desire to do better. As a child of God, that is what He desires for you.
With every predicament in life, God requires a new behavior to be developed within the life of the believer. (New believers are not given more than what they can bear by God; however, there is an expectation of growth and progression for the believer.)
Each believer should experience…
- A deeper love for God and for others
- A greater wisdom and knowledge of Jesus Christ
- More patience
- A desire to seek more understanding of others
- A deeper development in his personal life
When God allows you to go through a crisis or difficulty, it is not just about facing the crisis…it is more about Him dealing with you.
It is easy to run in the other direction or even quit when things get difficult, but God desires to personally develop you.
When you are really to allow God to work in your life, He will guide your steps. He does not want to see you fail, and it is not His desire to set you up for failure.
Building your own self-worth within the family helps to build the self-worth of others within the family. Everyone in the family contributes to the life of the family. There is good, bad and sometimes ugly that makes up the family.
How does God accomplish all of this?
We build a healthy self-worth by seeing life through God’s eyes. It is not about what you want. It is about living according to His will. Your self-worth comes from how God values you.
He sent His Son to die for you. That is how much He values you.
Most of our lives are busy working at what we want our life to be.
Colossians 1:9-10
For this reason also, since the day we heard this (that you became a believer), we haven’t stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God.
You desire to do God’s will and not your own.
How does one build his self-worth? Focus on the will of God, and desire spiritual understanding of life.
Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
Psalm 84:11
For the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord gives grace and glory; He does not withhold the good from those who live with integrity.
Proverbs 2:3-6
…furthermore, if you call out to insight and lift your voice to understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.
God’s knowledge and understanding is the beginning of growing a good self-worth within yourself.
Your self-image (your own concept of yourself–your identity, your abilities, your self-worth) is what you outwardly want people to see.
Worth: value, merit, honor. It is the value that God has placed upon you.
1 Peter 1:18-19
For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from the fathers, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.
Akron Alliance Fellowship 