Which means the most to you; feeling valued when you are at your best, or when you are at your worst.
If you answered that feeling valued when you’re at your best means the most to you then that is a real sign that you are imprisoned to performance Christianity. If you find yourself speaking a lot about your achievements, and successes in life, and feel that you are doing something wrong if your present circumstances don’t seem to be resulting in the same level of success that you’ve known in the past, then that is another sign of entrapment to performance-based Christianity. There is an old statement that I really love and it goes like this “I am not loved because I am valuable; I am valuable because I am loved.” You have to remember that it is the broken, shameful monster that you were that God “so loved” when he sent His Son to birth your new creation. There is a verse in Romans 5 that says, “God demonstrated His own love for us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” In John 15 Jesus talks about bearing fruit that will remain and in that context of telling us to bear fruit we must “abide In Him,” he also tells us that we must continually “abide in His love,” just as he, as son of man “abided in His Father’s love.” It is interesting to me that to be fruit bearers not only must we abide in Him, but to be able to abide in Him, we must abide in His love. To abide in his love includes not believing that our value before His eyes is based on a service rendered, but simply believe that I am valued before His eyes because He is love. It is remaining (which is what the word abide means) in a consciousness that he unconditionally values me for who I am apart from anything I do, or don’t do, that surrenders my heart to stay yielded to him without reservation and renders my heart to trust him without explanation, that brings about the transformation of who I truly am in my inner man.
Ephesians 3:16-19 AMP
May He grant you out of the riches of His glory, to be strengthened and spiritually energized with power through His Spirit in your inner self, [indwelling your innermost being and personality], [17] so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through your faith. And may you, having been [deeply] rooted and [securely] grounded in love, [18] be fully capable of comprehending with all the saints (God’s people) the width and length and height and depth of His love [fully experiencing that amazing, endless love]; [19] and [that you may come] to know [practically, through personal experience] the love of Christ which far surpasses [mere] knowledge [without experience], that you may be filled up [throughout your being] to all the fullness of God [so that you may have the richest experience of God’s presence in your lives, completely filled and flooded with God Himself].