What is Your Worth in Christ?
My daughter has four ‘things’.
Her fox blanket. Her dolly. Her mermaid blanket. And her baby.
These four things are ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for her to go to sleep. They are what she wants if she’s sad or hurt or sick. She loves her things more than what I would call reasonable.
What’s funny about these things is that there is nothing inherently special about them. Her dolly came from a normal Target trip. Her mermaid blanket was a baby shower gift that Selah has grown attached to only recently. Her baby is a hand-me-down toy that has seen years of better days before Selah started loving it.
And then there’s her fox blanket. This is, by far, her most valuable thing. It’s just a muslin swaddle someone gave us in her newborn days. She found it in her closet one day and that was that. She has loved it so fiercely, it’s starting to get tears and frays. It’s dingy after being washed so many times. But no matter how tattered it has become, this old, worn out blanket is her prized possession.
Despite the fact that anyone else in the whole world would look at her things and only see a random collection of mismatched toys, Selah has decided they are infinitely valuable. She gives them all the love she has in her heart. They are special because she has deemed them to be worthy. She sees something no one else sees. She sees them as precious.
There are a lot of days that I feel like her fox blanket. I feel tattered and worn out from the demands of life. My outward appearance has certainly seen better days. I feel needed, both physically and emotionally 24/7 and that beautiful burden wears on me.
But despite my weariness, despite my weaknesses, despite my shortcomings - I am deeply valued. And so are you.
The God who mapped out the stars, designed the mountain ridges, and paints each sunrise, sees infinite value in his people. Not because we are wildly successful. Not because we are superwomen, able to perfectly juggle everything thrown at us. Not because we have a Pinterest perfect life or can check off any Christian to-do list.
Our value, our worth and our beauty are all firmly rooted in the simple fact that God has loved us.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:4-10
Before I unpack the beauty in the words above, I want to address something I’ve seen too much of in Christian culture. There is a pervasive, improper view of how we see ourselves and how we see God. We see ourselves in far too good of light. We don’t see our sin for the heinous crime that it is and we don’t understand the depth of our need for God. In conjunction with this, our view of God is so depressingly low. We’ve reduced him to nothing more than a lovestruck teenager vying for our affections or a best friend, in equal standing with us.
But the beauty of Paul’s words in Ephesians is lost in these views. We were dead - DEAD - in our trespasses. But God answered our rebellion with rescue. We turned against the perfect and holy God who gave us life and rather than giving us what we deserve, he offers redemption.
Though we are wretched sinners, you and I are God’s workmanship. His masterpiece. Out of every amazing, unbelievable thing he has created, we, the ones who rebelled against him, are the most valuable. THAT is unbelievable. It’s hard to reconcile.
Our worth rests solely in the immeasurable, infinite love that God has for us.
The illustration of my daughter’s love for her things only goes so far in this comparison. She will get older and move on from her childhood toys. Dolls can be lost. Blankets can tear. And she will, one day, cease to love these things the way she does now.
But the love of our God will never end. It will never fail. There is no amount of time, degree of sin, or epicness of failure that can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). There is also no righteous work, no bank account balance, and no successful parenting moment that can grow his love for us.
Your irreplaceable value is forever set - not because you’ve earned it and certainly not because you deserve it - but because our perfect, holy God, has called you his.
Will you join me in resting from sin and striving? Let’s worship our God, now and forever, knowing that he saw our sin and failure and lavished his mercy on us in return.
