What Exactly Is My Worth?

Scripture: Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Observations:

Yesterday, in The Elusive Second Handful, I looked at being content with who God made me and believing I am who God meant for me to be.  About thirty minutes later I received an email with this week's Group Guide for FpStudents and it was all about "self worth."  Isn't that just like God to show us different aspects of the same topic by weaving together different parts of our lives?  He is so awesome!  But as I reviewed the group guide, I decided that today I want to look at just what exactly is my worth?

My daddy has taught me many things, one of which is-- The worth of something is determined by how much someone is willing to pay for it.  He is a realtor and I've seen him deal with this issue over and over again: the seller usually has a higher idea of the worth of their house than the buyer.  The seller will recognize that other houses with a similar price-per-square-foot seems a little high, but because of their emotional attachment to their house, it seems like a reasonable price for their own home.  However, it doesn't really matter how high they set the price if not one will buy it at that price.  Instead, the actual selling price is determined by how much a buyer is willing to pay for the house.

Just like the houses, our worth is determined by how much someone was willing to pay for us.  And Christ was willing to give his whole life (Romans 5:8.)  God was willing to give his only son (John 3:16.)  That's an amazingly high price!

But here's the other thing-- He was willing to pay that price for us even though we were supposed to be his in the first place.  In the book of Hosea, God calls Hosea to marry a prostitute named Gomer.  (Whaaa?)  This is for real-- look it up!  Well, he marries her but after a while Gomer runs off and starts selling herself again.  In chapter 3, God tells Hosea to go get her back.  Now, she's already his wife but he ends up having to pay her pimp a bunch of silver and barley to buy her back.

Application:
The same thing happened with us and God.  He created us in the first place but the devil moved in and took us over.  Have you ever heard of squatter's rights?  It is my understanding that here is the great state of Tennessee, if you live in a place that doesn't belong to you for a certain amount of time, you can actually be given the rights to that property.  It's called "adverse possession."  The devil took "adverse possession" of us.  He is a squatter!  God created us to be His, but the devil moved in.  And because of our sin, death had possession of us (Romans 6:23).

But our worth was so high to God that he purchased us with a price (1 Corinthians 6:20)-- a high price!  He was willing to pay the price of His son's life so that he could spend eternity with us.  So if we we ever wonder what our worth is in God's eyes, there it is.  While we were still sinners (in other words, even though he knew how screwed up we would be), he sent Jesus to pay the price for our sin.  Praise God!

Prayer:
Dear God, you are so amazing!  What a crazy story your love is!  I just can't even comprehend how much I must be worth to you for you to send Jesus to take my place in death.  It is unfathomable.  But I thank you for loving me that way, Lord.  Please help me to believe and live like I believe that my worth is in you.  In Jesus' name!  Amen!

Confident in this…
Miranda