In God's Opinion

Do you ever wonder what God's opinion of you is?  In fact, what is YOUR opinion of you?   If it is less than positive, I you must be human.

I confess that I not been feeling that great about myself the past day or so.    I have been spending a lot of time thinking about my faults and the wrong things I have done and not really acknowledging that I have many gifts or strengths at all.  I was pretty caught up in negativity and in keeping a record of my own wrongs. 

That changed a bit as I w listening to 2nd Chronicles in The Message during my journey through the Bible this year.   For a while there, each chapter seemed to begin with the name of the king, how old he was when he started his reign, and then it said, "And in God's opinion...." and then the words "he was a good king" or "he was a bad king, an evil king."  And then the chapter tells the story of that particular king's life.

I started thinking about what God's opinion is of us as people, and more specifically, what God's opinion is of me.   And I realized that in the Old Testament, God's opinions were simply based on the actions of the person.  What they did determined if they were good or if they were evil.  In that case, in Old Testament terms,  I'm kinda screwed.   Not that I intentionally do evil things, but like most humans, I make lots of mistakes.

But the good news is that we are  not living in the BC years -- those old testament years before God revealed His new covenant.  We are living after Christ came to change God's opinion..... to die on a cross that makes us all flawless.

God's opinion of me is not based on the mistakes I've made, or even my actions, but on what Christ did for me.   And the same is true of you.

God's opinion of you is that you are His beloved, redeemed child.   You are GOOD because Jesus makes you good. 

And that's a thought worth pondering. 

I'm sure I've shared this video before, but it's super cool so I'm going to embed it again :-)