Worthy

This post was written by TeenPact Student Body Senator Hannah Freeland of Tennessee.

Back at the beginning of this year, I had the incredible opportunity to share my message of “WORTHY” with the TeenPact Nation. But I didn’t get to share everything I wanted to say – a minute and a half on stage can only hold so many words. I want to take this opportunity now to recap what you heard of my message, expand on that, and share what I’ve been learning since National Convention.

My Message

Worthy: Something or someone who has importance.

Where do we find our worth? As humans, we typically look at other people and use their opinions to measure our worth. Whether that’s trying to fit in by the way we dress or act or talk, we constantly look for the approval of others in order to feel important. This doesn’t work well. We let people down and they let us down, too. Thankfully, God has something better for us.

God has created us in His image, redeems us in Christ, and views us as important – as WORTHY. All throughout Scripture, God says that we who are in Christ are CHOSEN (1 Thes 1:4-5), CALLED (2 Tim 1:9), ACCEPTED (Rom 15:7), ADEQUATE (Eph 2:10, and LOVED (Eph 5:1-2, Rom 8:37-39). This is a list of five — only FIVE — of so, so many good things the Lord sees when we are in Him.

In God’s eyes, you are always worthy, and His opinion of you will never change. After we recognize and accept the immense worth we have in Christ, we are prepared to begin growing in our knowledge of Him so we can share His love with others.

Now for the part of the story I didn’t get to share with all of you:

I’m still LEARNING

Around February and March of this year I was reading through Colossians with a couple of TeenPact friends. Since they live out-of-state, our schedules were all different and we were in different time zones, so most of our communication was over text. Each of them made several remarks that I found really important to remember. Take a look at Colossians 1:9-14.

“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” – Colossians 1:9-14

One friend shared, “Our worth isn’t who we are within ourselves. We can’t share who God is unless we are mature in our understanding of who He is. Who we are in ourselves is not enough.”

Another friend commented, “When we find our worth in Christ, we’ll want to live in a way that gives all the glory and honor and praise to Him. We’ll want to live in a way that points everyone we come in contact with to Him, and shows the world how much God loves them and how important and worthy He thinks they are.”

The ideas that we are worthy and can use a recognition of our worth to spread God’s love each segway into what I’ve been learning since NatCon. Overall, our prayer should not be to impact the world in such a way that we are remembered. Our prayer should be that we can use every aspect of our lives to spread God’s love in such a way that this world can’t forget Him.

This was my prayer going into National Convention and elections this year, and it’s what I’ve continued to learn after leaving the event. 

WHAT TO REMEMBER

To end, I want to share a funny little story about how I saw fruit of this prayer.

I attended Back to D.C. at the end of September, and when I got there I didn’t know a ton of the other students. As I got to know many of them throughout the week, those of us who had also been at NatCon conversed about that event. Sometimes we would start talking about elections, and every now and then I would hear someone mention remembering my message of WORTHY, and then saying something like, “you know, I don’t remember who’s message it was, though.”

That honestly made me really happy. I had prayed that it wouldn’t be my name remembered, but my message and God’s love. It made my day to hear that these friends both remember and actively believe that they are worthy.

So I want to leave you with the encouragement that you are WORTHY, and that it doesn’t matter if people don’t remember your name. Because hopefully, they will remember the way you let your life, words, and actions radiate the love of God.May we live lives “worthy of the Lord, pleasing him in every way”! 

Senator Hannah Freeland