Cap's Corner: YOU are worthy of God's love

by Cap McIlnay

You are too unworthy for church! Wow, have you ever heard such a thing? Well I have, and I want to address this.

There are many people out there that truly do not feel that they are worthy enough to go to church. I want to answer that in my most high thought and theologically trained expression. HOGWASH! Now, I say that with all love, and it is because of love I can say that, but not my love…God’s love!

So often, when I am counseling someone, I discover a lack of self-worth within them. I am not speaking about confidence. A person’s confidence might or might not be tied directly to their image of themselves, but self-worth, or the lack of, is completely their image of themselves.

An example of this could be the bully in the school yard. Many times, the bully acts the way he or she does out of self-doubt or a low self-image. However, they have full confidence in whopping your tail, and they often can and do. Again, many times they do this to make themselves feel more powerful or worthy than they truly do feel of themselves.

Many people who are “addicted” to sex, and have a history of conquest do so because of their low self-image. The bully and the sex addict temporarily build themselves up by doing what they do, but both acts are a temporary fix and that is why they repeat their actions. The real tragedy here, in both cases, is even though they feel better at first, in the end they just hate themselves more.

No, the regular low self-image is someone who sees themselves less than what they truly are, and it is in this light of “less” is why they feel unworthy to go to church. The reason why I can say hogwash to this thought, and I do so with true respect and love, is I know how God, your creator thinks and see you.

In Genesis, when God was creating everything, He kept on saying “It is good.” However, when He created humanity, He did not say it was good, but instead, He said, “It is very good.” You, you are very good.

I love stake, and I call it good, but you wrap some bacon around it and now I call it very good. So, you are not just fantastic, but you are bacontastic! God made you out of the image and likeness of Himself. He has put something of Himself inside of you. You are more, much more than just another part of His creation, a creature. He has made you His son or daughter!

“Yes, but God has seen everything I have ever thought or done! All those sins I have to answer for, and I remember hearing about the wrath of God, and I know that He will destroy me, because I deserve it!” This is when I remind you that God will forgive you of your sins if you would just ask Him too, but you think yours is the worst of all. You think there is no way God would ever forgive you of all of your sins, all of your evil. That, and you tell me that you had asked God to forgive for those sins before, and you keep doing them, and there is no way God will continue to forgive me for the same sins again and again.

Remember, Moses and David were murderers. On top of that, David committed adultery with the wife of the man that he was going to make sure died in battle. How low is that? I have sex with your wife, and I get her knocked up, and when all of my schemes fail to convince you that you are the dad, I tell your commander to make sure you are in the worst part of the fighting. That is what David, the man after God’s own heart, did. God forgave him.

Yes, God is a God of Justice, but he is also a God of love and forgiveness. His love for you is so powerful, that He sent Jesus down to pay for all of your sins, and Jesus’ blood can wash all of humanity’s sins away…if you believe! Furthermore, when God forgives, he forgets what you had done as if it had never happened. So, His love is so great, this allows us to continue to go to Him asking for forgiveness as often as we need it, even for the same sins because He does not remember the times you had done it before. This is true, even if you have not forgotten, or had forgiven yourself.

So, you say you are not worthy of going to His house, when in fact He created His house for all of His sons and daughters. Of course, some of His kids are better behaved, and maybe they have more polite social manners, but this does not, in any way, sway God’s view of them or you. He sees you with as much worth as His most worthy child, which is you! You are so worthy to be in God’s house, because God made you in His image and likeness.

Now, if a church acts like you are not good enough, than tell that church “Hogwash” and look for another. All churches are made up of sinners, and guess what??? WE SIN! So, don’t be surprise when we do.