The media and the culture of the day tell you all the things you are not. They remind you constantly of all that you don’t have, all that you lack, all that you should be, etc. If you listen to the television and the radio and read the internet and magazines, you feel like you aren’t worth very much and that you’re not pretty enough or rich enough or suave enough. In short, you’re not enough.

But I am telling you a different story. I want you to hear it here, even if you’ve never heard it anywhere else. It’s not really my story, but the one God told me that I am telling you now.

God says you are enough. God says, “I made you and when I was done, I didn’t say, ‘Close Enough’ or ‘That’ll have to do,’ but ‘It is very good.’

Paul talks about how you are God’s masterpiece, created to do the great things He planned for you to do long ago. He made you perfect and He made you with a purpose. That means you are exactly who God wanted you to look like. That means you are not a waste of space or meaningless, but priceless.

I wish you could see yourself through God’s eyes. I wish you could see that Jesus thought you were to die for and worth all His precious blood. I wish you could see not all your shorcomings and failures and inadequacies, but the image of God in you. I wish you could hear not all the names you’ve ever been called in anger or frustration, but the name God calls you in love: BELOVED.

The media will lie to you. What you read and hear and see all around you will lie to you. Sometimes, even what you think and feel will lie to you. But God never will. What He says is true and trumps whatever anybody has ever or will ever say about you.

That’s what I wish you could see and believe and hold on to in the hard times. Because that’s the truth, and the truth will set you free.