Tag: upside-down kingdom

How to be a valuable Christian

I am delighted to welcome Liz Carter onto my website today, with a guest post as part of the blog tour for her fantastic new book Valuable. I was thrilled to read an advance copy of it, and delighted to endorse it too. The book shares such a vital message to us all – I thoroughly recommend it to you.

I was really sick again. I’d been prayed for so many times through my life of illness, and I had not been healed. I was still in pain. Somebody in the group prayed for me with these words: ‘Father, please heal Liz so she can be useful again. So you can use her again.’

I felt like I was falling apart as those words churned in my mind. Useful again. Useful. Useful. It seemed to me that in order to be useful to God I must get better, and because I wasn’t getting better, I was useless. I was not valuable to God. I went out of that meeting with my head hung low and my heart heavy. Would I ever be of use to God? Even when people told me God could use me I couldn’t make those words mean good things for me. I couldn’t be used, because I wasn’t well enough. And did I want to be used, anyway? Was being used by someone a good thing?

Let’s look at the words we use

Language is so important, and as Christians we sometimes forget this and we use words and phrases that some might call ‘Christianese’; incomprehensible to the world around us. When we talk in terms of being useful to God, or of God using, people on the outside of faith may look on and raise their eyebrows at the idea that ‘God using’ is positive language. After all, when we talk about a guy using a woman, we don’t mean it in a positive way, do we? We mean he has used her for his own ends. So why do we talk about God like this?

It’s one of those things that we think must be in the Bible, but when we look into it it actually isn’t (a bit like unhelpful phrases like ‘God helps those who help themselves’). The verb ‘to use’ with us as objects and God as the user just doesn’t appear anywhere at all. There are some great pictures about us as honoured vessels, created by God for good purposes, but not to ‘be used’ by God. What if there is a different way of thinking about how God works in us and through us – a way that more accurately describes the love-relationship God longs for with us and has created us for?

What God values v what society does

God’s kingdom is an upside-down kingdom. While the world values productivity and usefulness, God values us for who we are: his beloved children. We do not have to earn God’s love, and we are not God’s tools, picked up and then discarded when the job is over with. Instead, God partners with us and joins with us (John 15) and is delighted in us (Zephaniah 3:17). In God’s economy, we are all loved and all equal (Galatians 3:28). The picture Paul shared of us all being equal parts of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27) was astoundingly radical and counter-cultural in a time where power was valued and the weak were thought of as lesser. It still speaks to us today in a society where ‘doing’ often seems to count more than ‘being’.

Even in church we can find this narrative has taken hold: we see how the useful, the strong, are valued above the weak, and so people who are weak can feel lesser. It plays into the way we talk about healing, too, as I said at the start: somehow we have come to believe that healing and ‘wholeness’ will make us more useful to (and used by) God. Somewhere along the line we have forgotten that God is not interested in how much we do, but in how much we love him and how much we respond to his transformative grace and power. For a disabled, chronically ill person like me, this is so liberating: I am found in Christ and freed in Christ, not for how much I do but for who I am created to be.

So when those kinds of prayers are prayed over me, I am free to say no, I do not need to be healed to be useful to God. I find God working in me and through me within my pain, and I do not have to always be trying harder, or getting better, or striving away to earn my place in God’s kingdom. I’m so grateful.

Knowing your value

My new book, Valuable: Why your worth is not defined by how useful you feel digs into these ideas and reflects on our stories in God, stories of his infinite love over us rather than stories of how useful we are to him and to those around us. It is my prayer that as you read it, you will find yourself set free from the narrative that you are not enough, and be assured that you are of more worth than precious gems.

That you are valuable.

Liz Carter is a writer and poet from Shropshire, UK. She is the author of Catching Contentment, Treasure in Dark Places and Valuable. You can find her on Twitter @LizCarterWriter, on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok @greatadventureliz, or at her website.

Get rid of selfishness

These reflections on how to get rid of selfishness and learn to value others are based on Philippians 2:1–11.

‘Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit’ (v3).

One of the characteristics of our earthly nature is selfishness. I love this quote by Jerry Bridges,* as it recognises that selfishness is our default setting, but also that we can learn to put off such habits:

‘It is our habit to live for ourselves and not for God. When we become Christians, we do not drop all this overnight. In fact, we will spend the rest of our lives putting off these habits and putting on habits of holiness.’

I find that encouraging, as it reminds us that we are all on a journey, and that it takes time – we need to remember not to condemn ourselves when we don’t always get things right.

It can be really difficult, if we are honest, to value others above ourselves and to look out for their needs more than our own. That’s almost an upside-down way of living isn’t it – but often that is what God’s ‘kingdom living’ is like. It is also how we can learn to be more united, and isn’t that what we desperately need right now?

LOOKING TO JESUS

In those moments when we feel the demands are too high, we are told to look to Jesus’ example. Verses 6–11 focus on His selflessness while here on earth – and how God rewarded Him.

Verse 6 is particularly challenging. If we feel trying to be less selfish is beyond us, let’s remember that Jesus ‘did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage’. If the one who was truly equal with God was willing to humble Himself and be obedient, shouldn’t that be enough of a motivation for us to follow suit?

LOOKING OUT FOR WAYS TO SERVE OTHERS

It can be quite hard in our current situation to practically show others how much we value them. We need to try and think outside the box (perhaps looking to try out some of the ideas I shared previously). Let’s ask God to help us learn to lay down our rights in order to serve others.

Yes, this can be a battle every day – particularly when we are facing intense difficulties ourselves. However, when we reach out to others, we often get the connection we need too.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, I am humbled once more when I think about how You laid down Your rights and were willing to sacrifice Yourself – for me. Help me to learn to put aside selfishness and reach out to others. Amen.

* Jerry Bridges, The Pursuit of Holiness, (Cumbria: Alpha, 1999 – first published 1978).