‘You’re nobody ’til somebody loves you’ goes the chorus of the latest single released by X-Factor winner, James Arthur. What a wicked, rotten, destructive lie! Have you bought into it? Do you at times feel as if your value and worth is directly related to the amount of male attention you get or to your relationship status? Do you long to be loved by a man partly to feel normal and valuable in our relationship obsessed culture? If so, it’s worth understanding the damage this deceitful lie can cause.

| The stirring of love |

Firstly, it can lead us to get involved with a guy to be loved instead of to discover if we are suited to marry. This can result in the stirring and awakening of love with someone we don’t end up marrying, which we are repeatedly warned against in Song of Solomon (2:7, 3:5 and 8:4). Even if we have had no sexual contact at all, this awakened love will have caused a deep attachment to occur that will then be destroyed when we split up. This, in turn, will ultimately leave us and/or him heartbroken as deep emotional bonds are cut along with the bonds created by the hugging, cuddling and other physical affection that often accompanies such relationships. If this becomes a pattern, it can result in many broken hearts and a lot of emotional baggage that can have long term effects. U.S. pastor Voddie Baucham calls this kind of behavior ‘glorified divorce practice’. It’s learning how to give ourselves away to people repeatedly and then take ourselves back. In addition, it can lead women to marry someone whom the Bible would warn them against, because they have become too emotionally attached to walk away.

| Insecurities |

Secondly, believing this lie can lead to deep insecurities and lack of contentment as we continuously struggle with never feeling valuable enough when we are not romantically involved with anyone. Furthermore, our desire to be loved can grow to be so strong that it becomes covetous and thus idolatrous (Col 3:5), which will in turn damage our walk with God and limit the fruit we can produce.

| Thinking Biblically |

Now that we have seen the seriousness of this lie, we must consider how we can overcome it. First of all, we need to repent of choosing to believe a worldly lie instead of God’s truth and then have our minds renewed (Romans 12:2). Secondly, we could try meditating on some passages from scripture that will help us:

1. If we are in Christ, then we are children of God.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:12)

If we can look at our lives and see genuine fruits of salvation such as that we no longer walk in the darkness (1 John 1:6), have a special love for other Christians (1 John 2:9-11), obey God’s commandments (1 John 2:3-5), hate the world (1 John 2:15) and desire to deny ourselves, embrace suffering and follow Christ (Luke 9:23) then we are children of God. Is a queen or a princess a ‘nobody’ if she has no male admirers? Surely not! How much more then, being daughters of the King of Kings, are we ‘somebody’ of worth and value. To believe we are anything less is to question the worth of our God. Can our glorious God have children who are ‘nobodies’?

2. Our names are written in heaven

“Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:20)

If we are Christians, then our names are written in heaven because of the huge cost Christ paid in His own blood. Jesus tells us that this truth is far more wonderful than the demons submitting to us. Imagine if a King rescued a prostitute on the way to her execution. The King takes the prostitute’s place under the executioner’s blade and the prostitute is promised in return that she will get all the King’s inheritance within a matter of months. Can you imagine the prostitute then believing that she is a ‘nobody’? To believe such a thing is to forget the value the King placed on her soul, to diminish the price he paid to rescue her and to disregard the incredible inheritance awaiting her. Can so great a salvation and inheritance be the possession of a ‘nobody’? Likewise, can our relationship status diminish our value as women whose names are written in heaven?

3. God is far more concerned with our hearts than how attractive we are.

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised (Proverbs 31:30).

It does not matter if we have a stutter, wonky teeth, limp hair or ears that stick out. Nor does it matter if we are a little socially awkward; have a habit of knocking things over or a less than attractive laugh. Neither does the number of heads we turn or telephone numbers we are offered matter to God. If we fear the Lord then we are to be praised, full stop. To believe that we could be a ‘nobody’ when we fear the Lord, because no one romantically loves us or is attracted to us, is to care more about how man sees us than how our Lord sees us.

4. Jesus was ‘unloved’ in the world’s terms.

We have no record of anyone romantically loving Jesus. What if there was in fact no one? Would we consider Jesus less valuable? To believe that we could be a ‘nobody’ if no one romantically loved us is to believe that Jesus could have been a ‘nobody’ if no one romantically loved him. To believe such a thing is to reduce the value of our God and Saviour.

5. We are so loved by God

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

The love the Christ has for us and has demonstrated by dying for us, his enemies, immeasurably surpasses any love known to man. Man’s love will always be flawed; there are always limits to our love and there are always conditions. In contrast, Christ’s love reaches to the most hateful, lost sinners. To believe we could be a ‘nobody’ because no sinful man loves us when we are so loved by God, when we as Christians have our maker as our husband (Isaiah 54:5-15), is to devalue the love God has for us.

Hopefully we can see that we have every reason to see ourselves as valuable. If we have believed the lie that ‘we’re nobody ’til somebody loves us’, let’s pray that God frees us today. Let’s pray that, by God’s grace, we can find our true worth and value in Him. [Rowina Seidler. First appeared in Grace Magazine, Feb 2014]