I don’t know about you, but I want to do big things for God. I want to make an impact. I want to leave a legacy. I want the epitaph on my tombstone to say something besides my name and some dates. I want my obituary to have some meaningful content. I want to do big things for God.

You do, too, I’m sure. But there’s some days where I’d settle for being able to do the small things for God, too. Things like not complaining or gossiping, but instead building and affirming others or being a blessing with my words.

Or maybe just living a day with integrity, being able to not “hedge” my Christianity based on who I am surrounded by. Or maybe it’s just telling the whole truth throughout the entire day.

Or maybe it’s even smaller things like putting the shopping cart back in the corral at the store, or (as Pastor Jeff used to talk about) putting the frozen peas back where they belong after I decide I don’t want them.

But as I think through these big things and very small things, I find that I’m measuring my PERFORMANCE. I am measuring my worth by what I accomplish. I consider my life a success or a failure by the things the world uses to measure success and failure.

And what if I fall short?!? (And I’m certain to fall short of those lofty ideals) What if I don’t live up to what I expect of myself? Well, if I measure my success or failure on the standards above, then… well… I’d be full of dejection and despair. That’s what a life of striving and legalism produces: the nagging feeling of never being good enough… of never living up to expectations.

But here’s the Good News: God only looks at the performance of His Son. His Son fulfills the law and its requirements. The Son took all my shortcomings, failings, lack of integrity, gossip, back-biting, and worse… all upon Himself. He took it all and His performance was (and is) perfect, so mine doesn’t have to be.

I no longer have to measure my worth by what I accomplish. I measure my worth by what has been accomplished for me by the One who gave His all for me.

Tullian Tchividjian says, “God is more interested in the worker than in the work the worker does. He is more interested in you than in what you can accomplish.”

After all, it wasn’t after God saw what we could do for Him that He sent His Son to the Cross. No, WHILE WE WERE STILL SINNERS, Christ died for us. While we were falling off of barstools… while we were living for ourselves… while we didn’t have God in our thoughts at all… Christ died for us.

That’s where our worth lies.