This Sunday we walked through a powerful section of the Scriptures in Isaiah 43 that spoke to the idea of living based out of our essence rather than for appearance.
Appearance - “external show”
Essence - “the most significant aspect or quality of a person”
Even just looking at those two dictionary definitions, doesn’t it make sense to live out of our essence, who we are as people, rather than just for an external show? Here’s another example: When you go to a party or social gathering and meet someone new, how does the conversation usually go?
“Hi, my name is Jason, what’s yours?”
“John.”
“Nice to meet you John. What do you do?”
You know what I’m talking about. All too often we equate what a person is with what a person does. Or, instead of that, we evaluate someone based on who they know. Isn’t that so much of what election or product endorsements are all about? So and so has spoken his blessing on this person or this product, and therefore it must be good. Or, to use another example, isn’t it nice to see how many friends you have on facebook or myspace?
Friends, while our job function and our relationships are extremely important, and deserve our best efforts, they do not form the essence of who we are. God tells us otherwise.
Isaiah 43:4, the center part of the passage we walked through on Sunday says this:
4 Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
and because I love you,
I will give men in exchange for you,
and people in exchange for your life.
Regardless of our position or accomplishments or any other characteristic we would attach externally to us, that does not constitute who we are intrinsically. In our pursuit to live as kingdom people, we must always remember who’s in charge – the King, and His name is Jesus. He’s who we follow, He’s who we derive our fundamental worth from, because He is the King.
Everything else flows out of our relationship with the King, and that enables us to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, when we seek Jesus.
Isaiah 43:7 depicts a beautiful illustration of the King seeking us out, drawing us to Himself, and then reminding us of this fact: We were created for His glory. And the beauty of it is that followers of Christ are supernaturally reenabled to fulfill this purpose through the promised Holy Spirit. Ephesians 1:13-14 says:
13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
Regardless of where you’ve been or how you value yourself now, you are of tremendous worth to God. No matter how far away you think you are from Him, if you’ve turned your back on Him, or walked away from what He wanted you to do, He is not far away. God, the King, loves you because He created you, and you are precious in His sight by no consequence of your own doing, but because of your inherent worth as a child of God.
November 5th, 2008 | | Posted by jason