Dear friends,

Like many who grew up in church, I somehow conflated…

unworthiness with worthlessness, and

worthlessness with humility.

This is more than just semantics. How we think about God’s worth and our worth can be the difference between living in false humility and true humility. It deeply affects how we love God and others.

If what we mean by us being unworthy is that we don’t earn God’s favor or love, then we’re thinking well. Grace is, by definition, a gift.

But if we start thinking that we are without worth or value, even in our fallen state, this goes against not only Scripture but also nature and common sense. We are made in God’s image. So if God has worth, we have worth. Period.

When teaching his disciples to fear God (which brings freedom from all other fears), notice that Jesus appealed to their worth: ​“Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (Matt 10:31).

Knowing how valuable we are to God doesn’t puff us up; it settles us down. Knowing our God-given worth doesn’t make us proud; it makes us humble.

My favorite line of any Christmas song is from ​“O Holy Night,”

Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
​’Til He appear’d and the soul felt its worth.

When we ponder God becoming a baby, we feel simultaneously small and full of worth, a mixture called humility.

Humility is to see things as they are. It isn’t to think of oneself as a worthless worm who God reluctantly redeemed. It is to fix our heart on God’s worth — which is the literal definition of worship — and know our worth in light of God’s worth. Jesus could be lowly and humble of heart because he knew who and whose he was. He had nothing to prove, so he could come as a baby and grow into a man who loved freely.

So in the light of the stable may your soul feel its worth, so that the humble mind of Jesus may be your mind as well (Phil. 2).