Worthless rotten sinners?

In Evangelical circles, we often hear we are worthless, suggesting we are unworthy of God's love. Is this true? It depends on what we mean.

If we were worthless, why would God send his Son - the Son who the Father holds in highest regard and of utmost value; the Son of his infinite love and affection - to set aside his infinite glory and take upon himself our just judgment? And to also assign to us his perfect faithfulness and righteousness?

The very fact that God the Father was willing to sacrifice someone of infinite worth (his only begotten Son) says something of our worth, does it not? God must have felt we were worth it or he wouldn't have gone to such radical measures to restore us to Himself.

Can we be of great worth and actually worth (worthy of) his love while completely undeserving of it at the same time? Are we splitting hairs? Let's see. 

We in no way deserve a restored relationship with God. We regularly tell God by our actions and attitude to go "pound sand." It should be abundantly clear there is nothing lovely or deserving about this. 

The necessity of grace (a gift) in itself says we can never do enough or be good enough to earn God's love and therefore we can and never will earn the right to participate in God's uninhibited and unfettered love. But His Son can! Without God's intervention and provision, we are toast.

It is not until we acknowledge and believe this (a matter of the heart, not our conduct) that we can receive and experience God's love. The depth to which we believe these things to be true is the degree and depth to which we will experience them to be true. 

But this is very different than saying we are unworthy or not worth God acting in love toward us and on our behalf. 

Are we actually worthy of God acting on our behalf? If so why? Is it because of something we have done? No! It has to do with who we are, and who God has made us to be. This has nothing to do with what we do for or by ourselves.

Why are we of such great value to God? Because we are like God. We are God's image-bearers, by God's own doing and therefore highly ¹valued by God. Would not God value His image in us? We, after all, are the only created beings who are like God. We alone can receive God's love and return his love in a way (the same way the Father, Son, and Spirit give and receive it among themselves) that all the rest of his creation cannot. This brings him joy and the honor and glory he rightfully deserves, like nothing else in creation can. But this is God's doing, not ours. He made us this way, in his image, we didn't (click here for more discussion).

Psa 100:3  Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

Our attempts to be in right standing with God through our independent efforts are worthless or worse yet are as "²filthy rags." But we are not worthless.

To become worthless, we had to have worth, to begin with. So what made us worthless? Our not conducting ourselves as the image-bearers God created us to be i.e. not living to and for God's glory and honor and loving Him with everything we are and have as we were designed to.

Rom 3:12  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; (why?---->) no one does good, not even one."

Is being in God's image enough? 

Being in God's image alone, however, is inadequate to restore us back to God because we rebelled and rejected his design for us and our original status. Being in His image means we have the capacity to love and honor God as He rightly deserves, but this is not actual loving. Thus requiring God to restore us back to fellowship with him by doing for us what we could never do for ourselves, i.e. by removing the consequences of our not loving God as we ought and were designed to. In the place of our unrighteous distrust of God - along with all its consequences - He offers us his righteousness as a gift i.e. by and through grace.

So there is nothing we can do to earn God's love, ever. His love was and is totally undeserved yet we are absolutely worth it in God's eyes or He wouldn't have done it.

Some other links that look at different aspects of this are as follows. 

Our worth based on what?

The most valuable values us 

Lovable vs lovely

Hard wired for greatness

Created for glory

God's love is based on who or what?

Our worth, God's glory

Giving and receiving glory

Why in God's name does he love us?

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¹Remember after God created everything he said it was good. After he created man he said it was very good. God values his creation and we are the pinnacle of that creation.

²How filthy? This refers to the rags used during a woman's menstrual cycle. Though some - i.e. the translators of the original language - try to candy-coat how repulsive our efforts to make ourselves righteous in God's eyes are, He does not.