The lie is universal in that everyone can relate to feeling insecure and inadequate (shame) and looking for an external remedy or source of worth (pride). The deception originated in the Garden of Eden and no one escapes its snare.

The results of this seeking for worth expand from individuals to create a collective dysfunction. Personally, we stagnate, our lives lack meaning and our relationships suffer. In community, people struggle with keeping up, gossip, social images, and addictions. Globally, the lie births racism, power, dominance, and greed.

Whether personally, in our communities, or in the world, without the understanding of spiritual wholeness, the lie has us trapped into needing more, doing more or being more. The lie stops some of us from functioning at all.

Despite our belief in Jesus, each time we attempt to escape feeling unworthy we inadvertently validate those feelings instead of our redemption and wholeness. So we go to church, and as the Church we often unwittingly fail to fully understand the motivation behind our behaviors. Still ensnared in the faulty mindset that we must manufacture worth for ourselves, we simply replace our sinful way of living with a sinful way of living under the heading of Christianity, e.g. self-righteousness, judgment, performance-based religion, etc…

There is a specific distinction between living as ourselves and living for ourselves. Making this distinction splits the atom of the part of us Jesus came to save and the part He came to save us from. This is where the power to live abundantly is found. Therefore, our approach to the gospel can be simplified back to trusting in God to judge us as worthy of love – worthy of an abundant life – through Christ.

In fully embracing our value from God, by believing we are made worthy, we are freed from endless attempts to manufacture worth with God or with man. This is living with soul-value: a life which has nothing to do with excess, power, fear, or greed, not programmed or legalistic, and not lived through victimization. We are pointed away from using other people, places, and things; and with no earthly agenda to gain significance in the world, we can freely demonstrate love in a way that glorifies God and transforms lives, while living into His intention.