Who Told You You're Unworthy?

Listening to the Cross Instead of the Accuser

Who told you that you’re unworthy, no good, useless, unusable to God? Who keeps reminding you that you’re weak, helpless, a total failure? Who told you that you’ll never measure up to God’s standard?

We all know where this voice comes from. It’s the devil himself. You hear his lies all day long, a voice that tells you God is continually angry with you. That voice comes straight from the pits of hell.

Many people reading this message have been convinced by the devil that they are unworthy ever to be used by the Lord. Perhaps you feel unworthy even to be called a child of God. When you look at your spiritual life, all you see is inconsistency. The enemy keeps sending a constant barrage of lies at you, reminding you of failures, always harassing your spirit.

Of course, in our flesh, we are all unworthy. We can never be worthy on our own. Yet many believers allow Satan to rob them of precious life by believing his lies about how God sees them. They believe they can never be worthy in the Lord’s sight.

If every child of God listened to the accusations of the devil, all ministries would have to shut down completely. There would be no church because there would be no one to stand in the pulpit, no one to sit in the choir loft, no one to usher, no one to teach Sunday school and no one in the pews. We all would be lied out of the blessings of God, and the Lord wouldn’t receive any of the praises that are due him.

Have you been listening to Satan’s lies about your walk with Jesus? Have you been thinking you’re unworthy, that you can’t worship God until you make everything perfect? I’ve got good news for you: You already know Satan is a liar, but I can prove to you that Jesus has made you worthy. He has made you fit to stand before him and serve him boldly in righteousness.

How are you made worthy?

You have been made worthy by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. That gives you every right to worship and serve the Lord.

“That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:10-14, NKJV, my italics).

The Greek rendering of verse 12 here is “The father has made us fit, worthy, qualified in character, good enough to be partakers in the inheritance of the saints of light.”

What Jesus did on the cross qualifies you for an eternal inheritance. So, if God has qualified you for eternal life, then he has made you fit in character as well. You could “sit down” from ministry for a month, a year or a whole lifetime to work on your character in the effort to become good enough to be used by God, but you would never be able to qualify yourself.

Even if you were able to win victories over every wrong thing you’ve done, every wrong thought you’ve had, you still wouldn’t be qualified in God’s sight. It is impossible. Why? God won’t accept anyone’s righteousness except that of his own Son, Jesus Christ.

You can’t obtain the righteousness of Christ by working for it. The only way to obtain it is by believing in his righteousness and trusting God for it. It comes to you by faith. You see, you are not only saved by faith but also sanctified by faith, justified by faith, healed by faith, kept by faith. It all happens by faithful trust in Jesus’ work, not by trust in your own.

We can stand before all of heaven and earth in full assurance of faith.

Because of the cross, you can say, “My flesh still resists the Spirit, but I am redeemed by my Savior’s blood. I’m going to sing and shout praises to merciful God!”

So, what must you do, you ask? First, don’t listen to the devil’s lies. Second, get up on your spiritual feet and start giving praise to the Lord. Say, “By my faith in the blood of Jesus, I receive the righteousness of Christ. He has made me fit, qualified, to worship and serve my Lord.”

“In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:14). The word for redemption suggests being set free. We have been set free by Jesus’ precious blood. Therefore, we have the right to stand against every accusation and say, “I’m not buying that, devil. You’ve accused me for the last time. My Bible says I’m redeemed because I believe in what Jesus did for me on the cross. I confess my sins to him, and I am redeemed, bought and free.”

Satan will still come to you whispering, “What about that sin you indulged in just yesterday? You are guilty!”

You can answer, “No, I’ve already asked forgiveness for that. I’ve asked God to put a hatred in me for it to keep me from doing it again. It’s all under the covering of his precious blood.”

“But you are still tempted.”

“True. But Jesus has made a way of escape for me. His word says I will be able to bear the temptation. He will deliver me because he promised he would.”

“No, God still has something against you. Here’s why: There are still unsettled matters in your life.”

When the accuser brings up an “unsettled matter,” some battle that still rages within you, you can answer with this passage: “And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight” (Colossians 1:21-22).

You can say, “Even when I was alienated in my mind by awful, evil works, even when I was in the pits of lust, even when
I was one of God’s worst enemies, the Bible says he loved me. He sought me out and reconciled me to himself. Now, he has translated me from the kingdom of darkness into his kingdom of light. He has made me to be at peace with him. So, how much more does he love me now that I’m reconciled, even when I struggle? My Redeemer loves me.”

Here are two of the devil’s lies we must remain on guard against.

God wants you to be set free from every pit Satan has locked you in and to rise above every lie he throws at you. Therefore, be on guard, especially against the following two lies.

1. Satan keeps bringing up your sins in order to get your eyes off your Savior.

The devil wants you to be so focused on your disease that you forget the power of the divine physician. He wants you to forget that God is your deliverer and that he is on your side to save you, not destroy you.

Here is how you must answer this lie: “No, devil, I am not free from the presence of sin—it will always be present in my flesh—but I am free from the damning power of sin.” Satan can taunt and accuse you, but he cannot damn you. He can throw all kinds of accusations at you, but he cannot touch your soul.

The law can’t condemn you because Christ fulfilled the law. Past sin cannot condemn you because it is under his blood. Your conscience can’t condemn you because Christ is greater than your conscience. So, you have been forgiven completely, leaving nothing to condemn you.

2. We must repent of our discouragement over our sins.

When we become discouraged, it is proof of two things: our ignorance of the Lord’s mercy and grace, and our unbelief in his love for us. Both are sinful.

If you become discouraged over your sin, perhaps you do not trust in God’s love for you during your times of failure. You are living in willful ignorance of your Father’s full acceptance of you. You must turn from this and repent, asking for his grace.

If you only understood how great your Father’s mercy is toward you, you would know he loves you even when you fail. Then you could say, “Oh, God, forgive me. I’ve been so discouraged because of my sin. I haven’t believed in your mercy and forgiveness. Restore my belief.”

Friend, I am not worthy to write this message. Nor are you worthy to raise your hands in praise to God. Nobody is worthy, not in our own human strength and power. Yet Jesus has told us, “I have made you worthy.” Now we can stand without any doubt in his glorious work for us, and we say in his name, “I am worthy by the blood of the Lamb!” Amen.