Sadie Robertson and Kolby Koloff expounded on the benefits of finding self-worth in Christ during week seven of their video devotionals, "The New Different." The girls encourage teenagers to look to their Maker - rather than to a significant other - for love and acceptance.
"Don't have your identity wrapped up in a guy," Koloff began, addressing young girls - "because if you try to find love in him, it's not going to work out and you're going to be left brokenhearted." She and Robertson exhorted teens to instead find true love in the Lord. They read from Psalm 139:
"For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (New International Version, Psalm 139:13-14a).
Your identity is what you base your self-worth on - what you think gives you value as a person. Psalm 139 shows us that everyone has value because God has made them, and every person is made in His image. Those in Christ are of great value to Him, for Jesus sacrificed Himself so that those who receive Him can be redeemed - forgiven for all of their sin. If you trust in Christ for salvation, you have worth because God has given it to you; our value does not depend the approval of others. The Scriptures proclaim God's sure, steadfast love for His people (see Exodus 34:6-7, Psalm 18:50, and Psalm 25:10) - followers of Christ are precious in His sight (see Zephaniah 3:17). He will never leave us nor forsake us, for we are His own.
If you tend to place a lot of importance on others' opinions of you, the girls encourage you to take some time to reflect on what you are basing your identity on. Koloff admitted that she, too, has fallen prey to wrapping her self-worth in a boy, and said that she felt like she needed his approval in order to be happy - "I just didn't realize that the only real love that I need to find right now, at this age, is from God," she says. Koloff now sees that she can be confident enough in her relationship with Christ to not worry about what others think about her.
"Seek God's approval before you seek the world's approval ... it'll change the way you look at things, it'll change your actions, your attitude toward people, and people will notice a difference in you - [you'll be] more of a likeable person, someone that they want to be around," says Robertson.
Robertson also encouraged young men to seek the Lord as they pursue a dating relationship - "if you go through God to get to her heart, then it's going to be a better relationship because y'all are in it for the right reasons," she says. Many teens struggle with purity because they are in relationships for the wrong reasons, and though God is able to forgive those who follow Christ, Robertson warns that those choices can lead to bad consequences later on.
The Christian Families Today ministry offers a bookmark available for download which can help believers remember who they are in Christ.
