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UNWORTHY? "If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: A Christian gives a testimony and feels compelled to remind everyone that he’s just a sinner saved by grace and is “unworthy” of all of God blessings. Why does he feel the need to say this? Does he think that the congregation is under the false notion that he thinks he IS worthy? This is a very strange spirit, indeed, for very few, if anyone, actually need to hear such words! Why would the Holy Spirit lead thousands of Christians to make utterances that no one needs to hear? Could it be that these “confessions” are more defeatist in nature than edifying, therefore serving Satan’s lukewarm and paralyzing cause more than God’s will for us to hold our heads high and lead confident and triumphant lives through the power of our risen Saviour?“I’m just not worthy.” Really? Who would benefit the most from having you believe that, God or Satan? For that matter, who TOLD you that, God or Satan? "You mean to tell me that you were worthy of salvation?” No, I was worthy of hell, but we aren’t addressing the past; we are addressing the present. We are addressing the fact that a Christian’s past is GONE, therefore his losing status as an unworthy sinner is GONE. Those who disagree are living in the past and are handicapping themselves as soldiers of the Lord. I WAS an unworthy sinner, but now I am a WORTHY child of the King because of the crowning work of Christ on the cross.“Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and JUDGE YOURSELVES UNWORTHY OF EVERLASTING LIFE, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.” (Acts 13:46)The idea is that God counted them WORTH saving, yet they rejected salvation, thus counting themselves UNworthy. By contrast, notice what is said of those who RECEIVE Christ:“But they which shall be accounted WORTHY to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage.” (Luke 20:35)No one is counted worthy due to his own merits, for worthiness comes only by the Lord Jesus Christ, but the “I’m not worthy” mentality is supposed to stop at Calvary, not to be continued as a sedating and crippling agent in the believer’s life. In Luke 15, the prodigal son said twice that he was “not worthy” (15:19, 21), yet the father never used this term even once. Instead, he said,“Bring forth the BEST ROBE, and put it on him; and put a RING on his hand, and SHOES on his feet: And bring hither the FATTED CALF, and kill it; and let us EAT, and BE MERRY: For this my son WAS dead, and IS ALIVE again; he WAS lost, and IS FOUND.”Then it says, “And they began to be MERRY.” (Luke 15:22-24) It doesn’t say that they began to play Laodicean lullabies in church and dwell on their unworthiness. In fact, it was the self-righteous older brother, not the father, who felt that the prodigal was unworthy! The father understood that the prodigal’s humble and repentant heart MADE HIM worthy.To be “worthy” is to be WORTH something, so if you are UNworthy, then God made a bad business deal when saving you. I reject that. God has been successfully running the “Father’s business” for thousands of years. He’s not in the habit of making bad deals. I believe that God purchased a pearl of GREAT PRICE (Mat. 13:46) and that it is Satan who has conned us into selling our birthrights for a worthless bowl of Laodicean pottage.“Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, ARE YE UNWORTHY to judge the smallest matters? (I Cor. 6:2)The implication is that believers ARE worthy to judge matters. That’s because Christ has MADE us worthy as sons and joint heirs in his kingdom. The believers at Sardis will walk with Christ, “for they ARE WORTHY.” (Rev. 3:4)The elders that rule well are “WORTHY of double honour” (I Tim. 5:17), and the Colossian believers were encouraged to “walk WORTHY of the Lord” (Col. 1:10), not to mope around crippling one another with their UNworthiness! Believers who are caught up in the rapture do so because they have been “accounted WORTHY to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead” (Luke 20:35).Here’s another one: “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.” (Mat. 10:37-38)The ones not worthy are the ones who choose to not follow. So what are the ones who DO follow? You’re scared to say it, aren’t you? You’ve been drugged by Laodicea’s defeatist dope, and you refuse to clean up.Okay, get Matthew 10:11-13: “And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, enquire who in it is WORTHY; and there abide till ye go thence. And when ye come into an house, salute it. And if the house be WORTHY, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not WORTHY, let your peace return to you.” Jesus didn’t say that none were worthy. Some were worthy, some were unworthy.The simple fact is that some people exercise faith in God and MAKE themselves WORTH more than others. Achan, for instance, took one piece of cloth home from war, and God had him killed. David, on the other hand, committed adultery and murder, yet God allowed him to continue as king and blessed his memory. In Lev 24:10-11, a young man blasphemes God’s name one time and is killed. Yet, Peter curses, swears, and denies the Lord three times and lives to be a great apostle and write two New Testament epistles. Onan took advantage of God’s law to fulfill his own sexual desire on a woman, so God killed him. But then Judah slept with a harlot and lives to be blessed of God with Christ coming from the tribe of Judah. Ananias and Sapphira lied to God and were killed, yet Samson lived a careless and carnal life and ended up in the hall of faith (Heb. 11)! How does one explain all of that? The scriptures that we’ve already seen explain it for us. Unworthy losers become worthy winners once they exercise faith in what God said and make themselves valuable.That’s why God used and blessed crude and controversial men, even though many proud and ignorant brethren thought they were unfit for the ministry. That’s why some Christian ladies have a greater “price” than others (I Pet. 3:1-4; Pro. 31:10), and that’s why some believers have worthless tongues compared to others with tongues of “choice silver” (Pro. 10:20).The scriptures are clear: If you are unworthy, it’s only because you CHOOSE to be unworthy by embracing a defeatist attitude sold to you by the devil. If God says you have been made worthy by virtue of your new birth in Christ, then it is your duty to rejoice in that victory and make the most of it. Pleading unworthiness amounts to selling your Christian birthright and welcoming an identity crisis."