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Online Prayer Resolution Course by Mike Banker in 2024.
Tonight, we're gonna talk about worthiness. What I mean by this is, do you see yourself the way that God does? And that's what we mean by worthiness. Do you see your worthiness the way that God does? So to begin with, a lot of churches they say that we are sinners saved by grace.
Mike Banker:Are you a sinner saved by grace? I am not a sinner saved by grace. I was a sinner and I am saved by grace, but I'm not a sinner anymore. When God looks down from heaven, he sees a son. And when his son sins, he doesn't say, oh, there's my sinner, Mike.
Mike Banker:It's always, there's my son, Mike. So we were sinners and we are saved, but we are not sinners anymore. Sinners live in fear of God's wrath. I don't live in fear of God's wrath anymore because Christ's blood has paid for my sin. Sinners are always crying out for salvation.
Mike Banker:I'm not crying out for salvation anymore. I have salvation already in Christ. So whatever we were before, that's not who we are now. When we believe there's a change that begins, it begins with the change in our status. We are now his children, his sons, and his daughters.
Mike Banker:Whatever we called ourselves before, that's not who we are anymore. And it's blasphemous to deny that God has this transforming power. Blasphemous to say he doesn't have this transforming power because Jesus died to save us but also to transform us. So when I do sin as a Christian, my status does not return to that of a sinner. He does not say there is my sinner.
Mike Banker:I still am his son, or you are his daughter. So my approach to God is much different. It's very different when I approach him as a son or daughter. So I can walk boldly into his presence. I do not have to crawl.
Mike Banker:So this worm theology puts a believer in a very hopeless state. There's not much peace with God because the fear gets in the way. This constant fear that when I sin, I again become a sinner and have to face an angry God who's impatiently waiting for my perfection. And how do I reach perfection? I have to do more.
Mike Banker:Be more in the word, more prayer, more spiritual, more this and that in order to satisfy God. There's no positiveness. There's no light. It creates low self esteem in the believer. And, inevitably, the only way to go is back down into the wormhole.
Mike Banker:Worm theology puts a light a basket over your light. Worm Theology puts a basket over your light. So we need to see ourselves in the way that God himself sees us. We stand before God as sons and daughters. And like the prodigal son, when we turned away from our sin, God ran to us.
Mike Banker:He turned to us. He ran to us and he delights in us. And he took away our shame by putting sandals on our feet and restored our honor and authority by putting a robe on our back and a ring on our finger. This is how God sees us. We don't have to crawl into his presence.
Mike Banker:We can walk boldly into his presence as his children without fear. We are totally depraved, which means we're unable to save ourselves. But Jesus did not die for something that was worthless, something without value, did not die for garbage. God created man as precious and worth dying for. So it's very important to recognize that we have value.
Mike Banker:We have worth. That's why Christ died for us. We are his image bearers. So here I have a question for you. Why did God create you?
Mike Banker:Why did he create me? Now some people say that he created us to worship him. But long before there was worship there was just simple fellowship with us. In the garden, God walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, it says. So God had a relationship with Adam and Eve.
Mike Banker:Long before there was worship, God fellowship with Adam and Eve. He's created us to have a relationship with us. He created us to have fellowship with him. So in a sense, you could say God is needy. Now, if we are God's creation and we have been made to have fellowship with him, then we have to possess certain parts and certain qualities.
Mike Banker:And both believers and non believers would have to have those god given parts and qualities. There is no difference between a believer and an unbeliever in our creation. Everyone is fully equipped to relate to God from the very beginning. So God has given us everything we need to relate to him. We are his image bearers.
Mike Banker:Humans bear his image, and he gave us everything we need to relate to him. So one of those things is we have the ability and the desire to communicate. Every person is able to speak to and hear from God. We are precious enough to spend time with because he, our heavenly father, spends time with us. God also gave us a will.
Mike Banker:God allows us to choose whether we communicate. We see in the garden that after Adam and Eve sinned, they hid and did not communicate. But later they did. God gave us intellect, gave us a mind so that we can process and reason, and god reasoned with Abraham. He reasoned reasoned with Moses and others in the Bible.
Mike Banker:So here's another question for you. Where did we get our emotions from? See, our emotions are also from God. Satan can't create anything. He can twist something, but he cannot create anything.
Mike Banker:Our emotions are given to us by God. They're part of communication. Our emotions give perspective to our thoughts. So you have 3 thoughts. But one thought is, there's a man with a knife and he wants to kill me.
Mike Banker:That's the thought we pay attention to because we have this strong feeling of fear. So our emotions, they're like pointers. Our emotions help us to focus on the most important things at the moment. So God gave you fear. He gave you fear.
Mike Banker:When you are threatened, you're supposed to feel fearful. Because when you feel fearful then you take actions to protect yourself, to fight, or to run, or to hide. But you take actions and our fear helps us focus in the moment on the threat that we face. Another emotion we have is anger. Okay.
Mike Banker:Anger tells you that you feel wronged. Somebody has wronged you. And so the feeling of anger should cause us to pause and say, why am I angry? Who made me angry? Who what is it they did that made me angry?
Mike Banker:And so this leads us to forgiveness, to accuse and forgive the wrongdoer. Another quality is that we were made to be eternal. We were made to be eternal. It was God's intention from the very beginning that we would never die. But because of sin, we we do die.
Mike Banker:But now, because of faith in Christ, we can once again live eternally. So God intended for us to be eternal. He created us to have a relationship and he created us to have an eternal relationship with him. Another part that we've been given is intuition. There's things that we know that nobody has taught us.
Mike Banker:This is our intuition from God. For example, this little, 4 year old girl knows to to stay away from that man. She doesn't know why, but she does know that she doesn't feel comfortable, around him. And so she protects herself by staying away from him. And she hasn't been taught anything, but she has through her intuition.
Mike Banker:She's, informed and stays away from him. Another part that we have is a sense of justice. In our heart, we have a sense of what's right and wrong and what is just and what is unjust that was given to us when we were made in his image. Now our sense of justice is not perfect. Our sense of justice has some distortion.
Mike Banker:Our sense of justice isn't the same as God. But the fact that we have a sense of justice, it came from being made in god's image. There's also certain qualities that we have. For example, God made each one of us uniquely. Even though we're made in god's image, each one of us is made uniquely.
Mike Banker:There's never going to be another you that walks this earth. There's never gonna be another Mike that walks this earth. Now my wife says one Mike is enough. And I agree with her because God has made every person unique. And that was his design.
Mike Banker:That is his plan. We're not all supposed to be the same or try to be the same. We are each one made uniquely. So if you were God would you make everybody the same? Of course not.
Mike Banker:Have a relationship with the same person again and again and again? Why bother? So God has made each of us uniquely. And it's supposed to be that way. Nobody is supposed to be like me.
Mike Banker:Nobody is supposed to be like you. God doesn't compare us one to another. God delights in each of our unique persons. Now what does man do? Man compares a to b.
Mike Banker:For example, man creates a pageant, a beauty pageant that has women in evening gowns march across the stage, and they rate them on a scale of 1 to 10. This is not God's way. This is man's way. This is what we do. God does not compare one person to another.
Mike Banker:He delights in each person uniquely. Another quality we have as image bearers is that we are lovable. And now we always say, God is love. What's the target of his love? That's us.
Mike Banker:We are the target of his love. So what does that say about us? So God is love, but we're not lovable? That doesn't make any sense. God created us to have fellowship with him.
Mike Banker:So, of course, he made us lovable. Every person is able both to give and receive love. Every person deserves love because God loves us. Another quality is worthiness. Every person is deserving of respect and dignity, whether they're rich or poor or sick or well, educated or not, whether they're a villager or a city dweller, a citizen or a foreigner, a man or a woman, an adult or a child, handicapped or fully capable, every person deserves respect and dignity.
Mike Banker:If I was with you, I'd say, let's go over to the window and look out on the street and you tell me who's not worthy of respect and dignity. Every single person is worthy of respect and dignity because every single person is made in God's image. We see this very clearly from Jesus' life in the New Testament. We see how he treated women. Let's see how he treated the rich and how he treated the poor.
Mike Banker:We see how he treated the educated and the ones that were not educated. He treated every single one of them with respect and dignity. Every one of them deserves respect and dignity because every person is made in the image of God. Another quality that we have is his image bearers is intimacy. Every one of us is able to have a close relationship with God and also with other people like David did, every person is able to share from their heart with God.
Mike Banker:It may not be our habit to share from our heart with God, but everybody is capable. Everybody has the ability to have a close relationship with God. Another quality is all of us have the capability to live life. Everyone can live their life within the limits that God has set. It would be unfair of God to expect us to live life but make us incapable.
Mike Banker:He has made us capable of living our life within the limits he set. If I'm not able to walk, then God doesn't hold me responsible to walk. He only holds me responsible for those things within the limits that he set. Another one, enjoyment. Every person's able to be a joy to others.
Mike Banker:Every person's able to receive joy from others. We have this ability. Every person has the ability to give, to be a blessing to others, but not just to give, but to receive a blessing from others. We have the ability both to give and to receive blessings from others. And we all have a capability for holiness.
Mike Banker:God has commanded us to be holy as he is holy. We have the capability to grow in holiness, to become more and more like him. We don't have to grow more dark and more sinful. Our holiness will never be enough for us to enter heaven without Jesus' help, But we can grow in holiness. We have that capability.
Mike Banker:It's part of being made in God's image. Besides these parts and qualities, we have a value. We were made in God's image. We're God's image bearers. We have our value.
Mike Banker:Sometimes we hear this phrase that we have found our value or our worth in Jesus. But first of all, I want to point out you can't find something that doesn't exist. We already had a value. We already had worth. But when we met Jesus, we saw our value and our worth.
Mike Banker:But Christ not die to make me more worthy or more valuable. A believer is not more valuable than an unbeliever. We don't share the gospel because we are more valuable. We share the gospel because they deserve it as much as we did. And so we don't become more valuable.
Mike Banker:Our worth doesn't increase when we believe. And Christ did not die to change my entity, my identity, my being. Being saved does not make him love me, accept me, or approve of me more. Christ died for me while I was still a sinner. How can he love me any more than that?
Mike Banker:He already loves me as much as he can. He can't love me more than that. He died for me because he already loved me. That was his motivation. I didn't do anything to earn that love, but he loved me anyway.
Mike Banker:Salvation then puts me into his family, into God's family, which creates then the basis of having a relationship with him. And God is very pleased with that because that's what he created me for. He created me to have a relationship with him. And the final point in this section is our self esteem. Not seeing ourselves the way God does, this is Satan's deadliest weapon.
Mike Banker:Having low self esteem, esteeming ourselves less than god does, this is Satan's deadliest weapon. We need to view ourselves and esteem ourselves the way that God himself does. So what happens if we don't? What happens if we don't esteem ourselves the way that God does? It wrecks our relationship with God and with people.
Mike Banker:It will also sabotage our ministry and our service to him. It creates a sense of hopelessness and fear. Low self esteem puts down everything that God has given us. People with low self esteem are inward focused. They're always wondering about themselves.
Mike Banker:They're overly concerned with what others might think of them. They're extremely self centered. The world revolves around them and they have a constant need for praise. Healthy self esteem is essential if we want to be a good wife, a good husband, a good parent, a good daughter, a good son, a good friend. And, certainly, if we want to walk in the fullness of life that God promises, we need to have a healthy self esteem.
Mike Banker:We need to see ourselves the same way that God sees us. Don't put your light under a basket. Don't put your light under a basket. That's what low self esteem does. If we're going to have a healthy self image, if we're going to see ourselves the way God does, there's 3 parts to it.
Mike Banker:1 is a sense of belonging. 2 is a sense of worth or value, and 3, a sense of being competent to live our life. Belonging, worth, and capable of living our life, these three things, everybody needs those. Every person needs those three things. And if they don't have those things, they won't spare any expense.
Mike Banker:They're consumed time wise, energy wise, to find them. Until they find these things, they can't really focus on anything else. We want to see ourselves in these three areas the same way that God does. The first one is belonging. This sense of belonging says that I have a sense of being loved and am loving, that there's a place or a space here on earth among this human race that is uniquely mine.
Mike Banker:I'm not a mistake. I belong here. I'm loved. I'm acceptable. I am approvable of.
Mike Banker:I don't need to fight or beg or perform to be acceptable or to be loved or approved of. These things are mine because I am me. And because I have them, I can acknowledge them and others on the same basis. If I feel unwanted or rejected, I will seldom, if ever, have a sense of belonging without some kind of resolution. Until then, there will be a general sense of loss, rejection, abandonment, isolation from the entire human race.
Mike Banker:So this man, he's in a group and there's over a 100 people there but he feels all alone. I mean, physically he's not alone. There's a 100 people there. But he feels all alone. Why?
Mike Banker:He doesn't feel accepted, doesn't feel approved of, feels unwanted or rejected. So until he resolves whatever causes him to feel that way, that's the way it will be. Wherever he goes he'll feel unwanted. Now, this sense of belonging, it gives me my sense of security. If I'm not a mistake, I belong here.
Mike Banker:I have a sense of security that comes from knowing that. Other statements related to belonging are I'm wanted and desirable. I am acceptable. I'm approvable. I belong here as a full participant not as a second class citizen.
Mike Banker:I am enjoyable. I am lovable. I have my own legitimate place in this world. I am unique. If somebody comes to you for sessions and they don't have this sense of belonging, or if their sense of belonging is bruised somehow, this is a really big issue.
Mike Banker:And it it takes time. It takes a lot of hard work to help them help restore this sense of belonging. There's lots of incidents that you'll have to talk about and resolve. And there'll be some lies also that you have to resolve. A person who doesn't have a sense of belonging, it's a lot of work.
Mike Banker:Their parents should have done this work, but if they didn't, then you have to do that now. The hurting one has to do that and you can can help them. Yeah. The second thing for healthy self esteem, healthy self image it's a sense of your worth and your value. If I have the sense of worth and value, I have a sense of my own uniqueness, my specialness, my preciousness, my valuableness.
Mike Banker:It says, because of my worth I can accept responsibility for all of my actions, both the good ones and the bad ones. A person that doesn't have a sense of their worth and value can't accept responsibility for the bad decisions they make, or for the bad things they do. They can't accept that. But if you have a sense of worth you can accept both your good and bad actions with full responsibility. If I am worthy to receive the praise, blessing, and satisfaction of making good and right decisions, then I am also worthy enough to bear the judgment or punishment and live with the consequences and learn from the bad or wrong decisions.
Mike Banker:Because I am worthy, I am deserving of honor and respect. I am valid. Therefore, my ideas are valid enough to be expressed and to be heard. And my opinions are valid enough to be expressed and to be heard. My emotions, my fears, my temperament, and my basic motivations are all valid.
Mike Banker:Your ideas may be different than mine. I might be able to poke holes in and defeat your idea. But it is still a valid idea because it's yours and you are a valid person. As a person of worth, respect, and validity myself, I am now free to deal with you also as a person of worth, respect, and validity. My conflict is with your idea, not with you.
Mike Banker:This is really important. There's a difference between who we are and what our behavior is. I can change my behavior. So that's not who I am. So I might want to get rid of this atrocious behavior.
Mike Banker:But I don't want to get rid of me. I want to free me up so that I can act out of who I really am, the way that God made me, not the way my experience made me. So you'll often see behaviors, horrible behaviors, and what you can say is God did not make you that way. Your experience has made you that way. But you can change that.
Mike Banker:I have worth. So why do I have worth? I have worth simply because god has given it to me. I do not have to work for it. I don't have to perform for it.
Mike Banker:I don't have to earn it. I don't have to prove I have worth or to pay to show I have worth. It is mine already. My worth has already been established by God himself. I can freely give unconditional love because I have no need to prove my own self worth.
Mike Banker:I matter. I am valuable. I am worthwhile. I am precious. I am unique.
Mike Banker:I am valid. I am worth spending time with. I am deserving of respect both by myself and by others. So I have a question here is, is a baby valuable? Why is a baby valuable?
Mike Banker:Baby doesn't do anything. And the baby just spits up and poops and cries. So why do you say that the baby is valuable? The baby is valuable because it exists. That baby is made in God's image just like you and just like me.
Mike Banker:How about a 90 year old person? Are they valuable? I mean, they're retired. They don't do anything. What do they contribute to society?
Mike Banker:What is their value based on? Is it based on their doing? It is not. They're human beings, not human doings. Their value was set when God created them.
Mike Banker:It's not based on their performance and what they do. They are made in God's image just like you and just like me. It says you were fearfully and wonderfully made. It also says that God knit you together in your mother's womb. These are all statements about your value and how precious you are.
Mike Banker:You were valuable before you ever even entered this world because god created you in his image. The third thing you need in order to have a healthy self image, the third thing you need in order to see yourself the way God is is a sense of your competence. And by competence, I mean, a sense that you're capable of living your life. I have the ability to make good decisions and to make right choices. I am able to deal with whatever life brings me.
Mike Banker:Because I have a sense of my competence, that allows me to turn to God to ask for help or to strengthen me or to guide me. When I cannot do something or there is something I do not know, I am competent enough to find out how or find the right person to help me. For example, when I got married, I was not a good cook. So when Denise would leave for the weekend, when we're living in China, what would I do? Well, I would go to the restaurant to eat.
Mike Banker:So I found a way. Right? So when I got tired of going to the restaurant, what would I do? Well, I'd call the restaurant and have them deliver food to my door. So you see, I could find a way to eat even though I myself was not a good cook.
Mike Banker:I can also learn to cook and I have learned. So the point is it's a sense of I am capable of living my life. And from that, whatever I face, I can deal with it. Whatever life gives me, I can deal with it. I know that I am capable to live my life, so I don't have to prove it again, and again, and again by doing everything myself.
Mike Banker:I have a sense that I'm capable of living my life. And so, asking for help is no threat to me. I have my strengths and my weaknesses. I have the skills to make decisions consistently and also the self discipline, not only to cope with life, but to live it victoriously. These are the kinds of words that come from a person who has a sense that they have a that they're capable of living their life.
Mike Banker:My sense of competence gives me the strength of character to stand tall on my own. I do not have to raise myself up by stepping on someone else, or to put them in the wrong in order to be right myself. There's no need to fear new tasks. There's also no need to seek out new ways of proving myself competent. There's no need to despair over past deeds done, or to be debilitated over what to do now, or to dread what will happen tomorrow.
Mike Banker:Competence is the feeling of being independent And the acceptance of responsibility and the privilege that comes with it. I am capable. I can handle life. I am independent. I can and I do make good decisions.
Mike Banker:So here's an example. 1 of my granddaughters, who's 4, she was afraid to go down the slide. But when she told us about her fear she said, I faced my fear. I did it. She had the ability to overcome her fear.
Mike Banker:Now her dad taught her this. But she said, I faced my fear. I did it. This is a sense of being capable of living your life. Another example is a baby.
Mike Banker:Usually, a baby is born with strong self esteem. Occasionally, there may be a baby that's not born that way. But, usually, the baby comes into the world and shakes their hands and kicks their feet and smiles and says, I'm here. I'm here, announcing their presence. And they expect others to pay attention to them.
Mike Banker:And when they're hungry, they cry. They expect somebody to feed them. So this baby doesn't have a problem with self esteem. I'm here. I'm here.
Mike Banker:See? And everybody turns to look at that little baby. A toddler usually doesn't have a problem with self esteem either. The toddler sees mom walk down the stairs and says, oh, I can do that too. So the toddler takes one step and then tumbles the rest of the way down the stairs.
Mike Banker:So that child doesn't lack in self esteem. They feel they're capable of living their life, And the mother spends half her time stopping the toddler from doing things they're not ready to do. But there's no problem with the sense of self esteem. If you're missing a sense of belonging, or if you're missing a sense of competence, or if you're missing a sense of worth or value, then you probably believe a lie or lies. Those lies need to be uprooted and replaced with truth.
Mike Banker:And we'll talk about that more at the end. If a person has a healthy self esteem, what does that look like? What does their life look like? Well, if a person has a sense of their competence, a sense of their worthiness, a sense of their belonging, that affects the way they act and the way they respond. If they do something wrong, they own it.
Mike Banker:If they are criticized, they can accept it. Maybe they don't accept all criticism, but at least they can hear it and consider it. They can lose an argument. They don't have to win every argument if they have healthy self esteem. They can make a mistake and admit it.
Mike Banker:They can own a bad decision or a poor decision instead of denying it, they can ask for help. They can receive help. And they can also say, I'm sorry. So if you see yourself the way God does, if you have a cell healthy self image, then this is the way you can live your life. I can do all those things without any fear because I am aware that I am not my behavior.
Mike Banker:Because I know I could change my behavior if I choose. So do you ever do something bad? Okay. Well, then you're a bad person. Do you ever do something good?
Mike Banker:Well, yes. Well, then you're a good person. But which one are you, a good person or a bad person? See, maybe you're just a person. And sometimes you do bad things and sometimes you do good things.
Mike Banker:And you could change those bad things into something good. You are not your behavior. You are separate from what you do. You can change what you do. I live out of my self esteem by being able to set boundaries to assume responsibilities, to deal with privileges.
Mike Banker:I live out my self esteem by being able to be accountable for my actions and my attitudes. A healthy self image and esteem allows me to face each day with assurance and optimism. Be affirming, encouraging, uplifting to both myself and to others. To find satisfaction and fulfillment from within, to set reasonable goals and to fulfill them. To be more outward focused rather than inward, to make decisions based on assumptions that are true.
Mike Banker:A healthy self image or healthy esteem allows me to establish healthy relationships with other people. Self esteem is not pride. Pride is always at the expense of somebody. Self esteem doesn't detract from others. It doesn't take away from others.
Mike Banker:It always adds or builds up. Self esteem is simply seeing ourselves as god sees us in a realistic way and accepting and believing that. God did not alter my spiritual state in order to love me. He did not do his work of redemption in order to make me worthy to be loved. He did this purely and simply because I was already precious and of worth and greatly loved.
Mike Banker:God did not die for garbage. We are precious and of great worth and are greatly loved. God commands us to love your neighbor as yourself. You have to love yourself first. You must esteem yourself first.
Mike Banker:You must see yourself the way God sees you. If our love for ourself is distorted, our love for others will be distorted also. So when God said, love your neighbor as yourself, it meant that you esteem yourself the way God esteems you. That the way God sees you is the way you see yourself. And from that, you can love yourself.
Mike Banker:And because you love yourself, you can love your neighbor.