Acceptance in Christ- Romans 15:7

We have seen the basic human need for acceptance, and that human beings need a sense of worth, competence and belonging. We have been provided this acceptance in Christ, and we will now examine Scripture to see what it tells us about worth, competence and belonging. The first passage to be examined is 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. In this passage, Paul tells believers that they are “not your own, you were bought at a price”. God paid a price to “buy” us, and the price He paid was His Son. The worth of something is determined by what someone is willing to pay for it. If I am selling a used car and someone offers me $10000 for it, then the car is worth $10000 to them. The car is worth what the one buying it is willing to give for it. In our case, God was willing to give Jesus for us, Jesus is the price God paid for us, what we are worth to Him. Our true worth (to the only one that really matters) is one of infinite value, we are worth more than we can ever really understand, and our realization of this should forever settle the issue of worth for us. We have a sense of worth in Christ which is unshakeable, and Jesus is the only settled and sure source of worth for us. The second passage is 2 Corinthians 3:5-6. in which believers are told that “our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers”. We are told here that all believers are “competent” as ministers, that there is a “ministry” for each of us, a “job” in God’s kingdom. Each of us will be competent to carry out our ministry, for God will assure we are competent, for our competence comes from Him and He will make us competent. We will be able to do whatever it is God calls us to do, and a sense of competence will be found as we carry out our ministry for Him. The third passage is Romans 1:6, in which believers are described as those who are “called to belong to Jesus Christ”. The called here are those who have responded to God’s call to salvation in Jesus Christ, and all of these “belong” to Jesus Christ. All believers belong to Jesus Christ simply by virtue of being Christian, and we belong to one who will never disown us or drive us away, our need for belonging has been forever provided for in Christ. So we see here that the basic human needs for worth, competence and belonging have all been provided for us in Christ. We have been given all we need to be mentally and emotionally well, and these are provided by one who can be depended upon never to change his mind about these things. These are all rooted and grounded in the unshakeable reality of Jesus Christ, not in other people or things. Placing our sense of worth, competence and belonging in anything other than Christ is building them on sand, and only when we rest in what we have been given in Christ will we live out the reality of these in our lives, sure of the foundation of worth, competence and belonging we have in Christ.