Value

Matthew 6:26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

The perception of our value is what motivates us to do just about anything. If we do not feel valued by our bosses at work then our performance, attitude and attendance suffers. In a marriage, if a spouse feels as though they have no value, they may stray to another that can. Our identity is wrapped up in our value to others. We perform for others as long as we feel valued. Of course we cannot feel fully valued from sources that are themselves unable to feel valued. It's a terrible way to live life drawing from wells and drinking from cups that are dry. 

However we have a greater source. Christ Jesus should be our only source of value we have. The quote above, "Are you not much more valuable than they?", gives the reader or hearer the option to seek out that answer. 

When most come to God, they come with a guilty conscience as the enemy has stripped them of who they are in Christ. They believe the enemy and what he says about them, that they're not worthy and that they are just sinners barely hanging on. However, the truth is that Christ washed us of our sins and has given us righteousness in the eyes of God. When we see us through the eyes of God, our whole perception changes.

At one time I loathed myself for all the mistakes I made in my marriage and how I treated my son in my younger years. It was a burden I carried into my Christian walk. The burden was not necessary as I should haved clothed myself in the reality of forgiveness from the time I came to Christ. I should have reckoned myself dead to that old man that died on the cross with Jesus  and then excepted the new life he gave me but the enemy is always there to persecute. Anyway, I drug my past around like a prisoner drags around a ball and chain and it stayed that way until I forgave myself and then excepted the reality of how much God loves me.

My wife and son had both forgiven me yet until I forgave myself I could not move forward in His love. 

Has anyone been drunk before? In the past before Christ, I have. Now, you choose to drink that beverage knowing full well the outcome. For me, I knew and went through with it anyway. Most people do. It's the sin nature that entices us to sin, the flesh loves to satisfy itself. So, most drunks have a very different personality from their sober selves. Their loud, obnoxious, belligerent and rude. When they are drunk, their actions are not controllable. They have no idea what they say or do. Most can't remember what has happened, even when you show them a video. What they did while drunk is held against them even when they sober up. Friends will pull that video out at every get together to humiliate them all over again. Conversations will pop up randomly about it and everyone that say your behaviour rubs it in your face for all long time after the fact. That's what it's like to be in sin, then coming to Christ. Your friends, spouse, kids and the enemy are always there to bring up what you did before you came to Christ and sobered up. 

Those voices are designed to keep you from obtaining your true purpose in Christ. It's the past that haunts us, creates doubt in us and says we aren’t worthy of Him. 

I told a story in my Dec 7th blog "Changed" that talks of a slave who was bought by a new master. The new master freed the slave and made him an heir to everything He had. However, the slave, even though he was freed, had the mentality of a slave still and didn't get he was an heir to all he saw.

It's our job to just have faith in what God says about us. If He says we are forgiven then faith says we are forgiven. If God says we are Sons then by faith we believe we are Sons and no longer slaves to our past. 

We must believe that God values us with the highest value we can have. We cannot afford to be contradictory of the truth. He pursued us, He courted us, He took a gutter trash piece of garbage and saw value in us. He saved us from that wretchedness of selfishness and clothed us with garments of beauty and extravagance. He washed us from the filth we had on us and gave us perfume of tremendous value. Instead of being beat by the hands of condemnation He caressed our face with love and caring. He scooped us up in His arms and held us tightly to His chest because He saw value in us and as we are being held we have one of two thoughts to entertain. 

We can be held but never think we are worthy of that love or we can agree with how He sees us and embrace Him just as strongly and never let Him go.

Our value is real and is dictated by God. We cannot afford to see ourselves in any way other than that. 

May the Lord bless you with eyes that can clearly see how much you mean to Him. May you come to an understanding of just how precious and valuable you are. One last thing, the story of the man finding a treasure in the field, then he sells all he has to buy that field so he can have the treasure; that treasure is you. God sold all He had to purchase you. Think about that.

To God be the Glory!