Breaking the chains of stinkin thinkin!

I have been on a journey for some time now desperately trying to start finding my worth in Christ. For years now, I have been in bondage to skewed thinking...to a wrong belief system. Due to some circumstances in my past, I have always felt the need to try to earn God's love. This has been extremely exhausting because every time I screw up (which is often), I thought that I had to earn back His love. I always ran around feeling guilty about everything, feeling condemned, not good enough, too this, too that.....yada yada yada. The worst part is that I felt like I was unrighteous, like I wasn't as close to God as my friends were, like somehow I was not doing it right ( my relationship with him). The sad thing is that because of my skewed thinking, I actually was doing it wrong. By staying in bondage to "stinkin thinkin", I was not having faith in my Savior. Sure, I believed in Jesus, that He died for my sin, but somehow I always left out the part about how I have been made right....justified (just as if I never sinned). Even as I read God's word, I didn't believe that I was valuable.....which is a lack of faith, and gave the enemy total control of my life. I gave the enemy a foothold because I believed his lies. The biggest problem has been that I have let my feelings and my emotions rule in my relationship with God. Also, I ran around as a total hypocrite....telling people that Jesus loves them despite any sin in their life, yet I failed to believe it for myself. I was believing that I served a very conditional God. I am now starting to realize that all I have to do is believe. I don't have to do anything "right" but believe. By believing in Him, and placing my trust Him and His word (all of His words), my actions will be an outpouring of confidence in Christ. I know that you get what you believe.....I can choose to believe that I am not good enough....and then I never will be....or I can place my trust and my confidence in God, and He will give me favor. I am priceless in God's eyes, He loves me, He desires me, I am beautiful to Him, He strengthens me, He lifts me up, and NOTHING that I can do changes my worth in His eyes.....NOTHING! That is sooooo totally awesome. "Nothing can seperate me from the love of Christ!" WOOHOO. It's like this......let's say that Ricky Martin called me up and offered me $100 and I agreed to take it (I don't know why I chose him....but it is hypothetical ...ok) ,ok anyways, then on the way to give it to me, he dropped it in the mud, it started to blow away, was crushed by a passing car, wrinkled beyond recognition, trampled on by pedestrians, and then when you thought it couldn't get worse as Ricky was bending over to finally pick it up...it got stuck to a piece of gum.....and it got a tear on the corner. Not so Vida Loca! So, Ricky says....Sunny (there is a point to my story k) here' s the $100 that I offered you, but you probably don't want it because it's all messed up now. You know what I would say? "Are you loco Ricky? of course I still want it....$100 is $100...just because it got messed up on the way, doesn't change its worth...it all spends the same" (ok, you see where this is going now...right? you guys know me by now....I have a crazy brain) The fact is sometimes I screw up, I fall in the mud, I get stuck in sin(gum), I get torn by my insecurities, I get trampled on by my worries....and then my "stinkin thinkin self" goes to God and says, I have lost my value Lord, I have sinned, I have been torn up, trampled on, blown in the wind instead of rooted in you, and unfortunately I have lost my value. I am worthless. And you know what God says? "Are you Loco, Sunny, of course I still want you, your value hasn't changed at all. You are still worth it! I still love you.....your mistakes don't change the fact that I died for you, that I desire you, that I chose you ON PURPOSE! " And you know what I say? Man, that is SWEET! (see, I am just like the $100 bill....I still hold my value). That's my story and I am sticking to it!