I love to tell people the good news of Jesus Christ. What a deal! We are sinners and can’t possibly begin to be reconciled to God by anything that we can do on our own, but we aren’t hopeless. God sent Jesus to die for our sins and anyone who believes in Him will be saved! It can’t get any sweeter than that.

Then you start walking with God by praying and reading His word and letting His Holy Spirit fill you, and you discover that you are not just saved from your sins, but you are loved better than you could ever imagine! I love the way the beloved disciple wrote it in 1 John 3:1, How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! It gets even better.

We are dearly loved children of the Father. The only bad news is that many of us don’t know it. We don’t know how much we are really worth. I’m sure that is one of the reasons why Jesus told the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. He was addressing some people who didn’t know what they were worth. Don’t get confused, they didn’t have a poor self-esteem; quite the contrary, they were pretty certain that they had God all figured out and that they were in quite good with the Creator of Heaven and Earth. After all, they were living by every letter of the Law He had given them and beyond it. They felt worthy of the Father’s love, but they still didn’t know what they were worth.

This story of the Prodigal Son reveals that we cannot know what we are worth until we know that we are not worthy to be called His child. It takes some of us longer to realize that than others. The story begins with two sons who feel very worthy of their father’s love; the older one because of his obedience to his father, and the younger one because of his birthright. In fact the younger one tallied up his worth and determined that he was worth his rightful share of his father’s belongings and took no shame in asking his father if he could cash in on it early, before the father passed away. As the story progresses, the younger son comes to his senses and thinks about his father’s house and realizes that he is not worthy to return there as a son. This was the point that the son first began to know his true worth. Before he left home he didn’t really know what he was worth.

You first begin to know that you are God’s child when you finally realize that you are not worthy to be called His child. Up until that time, you will always be miscalculating your true worth.

Now nobody wants to read a devotion encouraging them to come to the place where they finally realize that they are unworthy, but I am asking you to do just that. There is a sweet discovery awaiting you. You will look up into the eyes of your Father who has come out to you with His arms open wide. Finally, you will be able to reach back and receive His love and know your true worth. That’s exactly what happened to the younger son. The older son never really knew his worth and the reason is he never made the same discovery that he was not worthy to be called the son of his father. All the while he assumed he was worthy because of what he did for his father. Which son will you be? Have you discovered your worth by first coming to your senses? There is a healthy, good unworthiness in the presence of your Father’s compassion