God Esteem
One of the many motivations for true Worship, Faith, and Obedience can be found in God Esteem. That means esteeming God, His Word, and His promises as higher than myself, my own word, and my own ambitions. That we esteem Him above all things and that His Word is infallible and perfect and in order to please Him we must believe Him and obey Him, knowing He is fully capable of doing everything He says He will do for those who believe. (Hebrews 11:6).
Jesus did not die to become our motivational speaker, our self-help guru, or to build our self-esteem....Otherwise the basic recieving of the Gospel message would not first require you to "lay down your own life," and then "take up your own cross."
Even when the Bible says that the Church will eventually overcome the Devil and his fallen ones after he is cast to the earth having great wrath in Revelation 12. How does the Church overcome the devil? By the Blood of the Lamb, the Word of their testimony (a result of walking in faith in something bigger than ourselves), and that they did not love their own lives even when faced with death.
God loves His Children intensely and He knows who we are even when we don't. As crazy as it sounds we do not even know ourselves that way we actually are because we have yet to be glorified by God, given our new bodies, and with that a new mind, and new heart, that is completely devoid of any of the hate, anger, rage, sorrow, grief, dissappointment, or any other destructive thing. The Word of God says that He will wipe away every tear from our eyes and sorrow and grieving will pass away (it will never be known again).
It is facinating to understand that when we leave this "reality" (since it is temperal it isnt truly reality) we will be transformed into something much better than we are now. In fact the Bible calls us "Children of God" and "joint heirs with Christ Himself." Also, in Hebrews 2 if examened fully we understand that Jesus for a little while was made lower than the Angels, but this same passage shows that God has included those who believe and follow Jesus as partaking in the same promise...For, as Scripture says, "For He did not subject to Angels the world to come." This means there will be a day when Gods personal esteem of us will be litterally like His own Children and thus, if the passage is taken litteral then that means higher than the Angels.
God esteems us greatly, why, I will never know but He loves us so much that He gave us His only begotten Son as a sacrifice that was powerful enough to save those who believe for eternity! That if we die with Him to this world (very humble and seemingly lowly) then we will also be given eternal life as we share in His ressurection (more Glory than we can imagine). Even though we walk this earth as Ambassadors for a Kingdom most of us have never seen, we are still not yet fully realized as to what we will be.
It has been noted by many who have studied the scriptures front to back, that Jesus did not die for who we are...But rather He died full well knowing what we will become. He died to give us that hope and that eternal future, to give us a life beyond our own current understanding. And....What will we be? The answer is, something much greater than what we are, and we will know Him as we are also known.
"See how great a love the Father has given us, that we would be called children of God; and in fact we are. For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope set on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure."
~ 1 John 3:1-3~