The Price is Right

Value: The regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something. Each human life has value, would you agree? We are all individuals uniquely created with different personalities, quirks, struggles, strengths, and gifts. Is one life more valuable than another? I do not believe so, yet I often find myself feeling that my life and who I am is not equal to the next person. I feel inferior or less valuable than a family member, friend or acquaintance. So what is it that makes us feel valuable? Is it something constant? Or something that can change with the times? Is it our money, weight, clothes, friends, status, abilities or talents? Or is there some unchangeable, steady measure that we can hold our life up against to truly see our value? Why is it that we allow something as inconsistent as a number on a scale to determine something as important as our value? I get so frustrated with our society and our culture that says that if we eat healthy and organic and “clean” and we exercise every day, THEN we somehow become more valuable. Yes, we need to take care of our God-given physical bodies. But what is the gold standard? If I only go to the gym twice each week, is the person next to me who is there every day somehow magically better than me? If I don’t go at all, am I less important than everyone else? It is heartbreaking to think of the number of people who fail to see their value, or usefulness or importance in this life because they don’t live up to the unrealistic ideal portrayed in every magazine, Victoria’s Secret fashion show, or Pinterest board. And yet, this “ideal” woman (or man), based on image, style and role in society is ever changing! How can we set a standard of value on something that vacillates with every generation? I ask again, is there some unchangeable, steady measure that we can hold our life up against to truly see our value? I believe the answer is yes. And it has nothing to do with the number of followers we have on Instagram, the brand name or size number on a tag inside of our clothing, the grocery store we shop at, or our home décor. It has everything to do with our Creator. We did not create ourselves. We did not choose to which family we would be born, our genetic makeup, our physical bodies, our innate strengths and weaknesses, or our personality traits. Our God chose to make you the way He made you. THAT gives you value. Yet we choose to walk away from Him and live for ourselves rather than for Him. Mankind had a choice to either listen to God’s instructions and live life the way He intended or to listen to our own selfish desires. We did not choose God and He allowed us to do so. But He still wants us to be His. He made a way to bring us back to Himself. He BOUGHT us with an expensive price- His son. THAT gives you value. The power of His sacrifice is so great that we will never on this earth understand the full extent of the crucifixion of Jesus. But if I give my life for something, whatever that thing is now has great value. Our nation has value because of price that has been paid for our freedom. If I have a coupon for a free box of chocolate and I redeem that coupon, that chocolate now has the value the coupon placed on it. When Jesus traded in His life for our own, the value of His sacrifice (which again, we cannot even fathom) was placed on our lives. THAT gives you value. How insulting it must be to our Savior when we devalue His sacrifice, and instead seek our value from our relationships, our appearance, and even our food! If we want to live a valuable life, an important and useful life that is held in high regard, we need to receive that value from something that won’t change from day to day, based on current trends, fads, and whims. We need to receive our value from the unchanging, unfailing love of Christ, which redeems us from a valueless life apart from Him. And there is no greater treasure in all the earth than this great love that He has lavished upon us!