What are you worth?

How do we measure what we’re worth?

• By the amount of money we have in our bank accounts?
• By the number of houses and cars we own?
• By the number of people in the world who would recognise our name and face?
• By our popularity and attractiveness?
• By the amount of power we have?
• By our educational pedigree? (How many degrees do we have? Did we graduate from a top university? How many As do we have on our transcripts?)
• By the status of our jobs? (Doctors, teachers, soldiers, and firefighters frequently top lists of “most respected jobs”.)
• By the amount of “performance bonus” we get at our jobs?
• By the number of lives we impact for good each day?
• By the number of people we help each day?
• By the number of people who depend on us every day?
• By how much our families and friends love us?

I have seen people lose their sense of self-worth because they have lost their jobs; because they’ve repeatedly received the message that they are worthless from people at home, at work, or in school; because they are no longer loved by someone who once loved them; because they received a lousy work performance report despite having tried their hardest.

And in the highly competitive academic world too, it is very difficult to resist being defined by one’s performance. Everything is graded and scored. Universities are ranked. Departments are ranked. Student assignments are graded. Students are ranked to receive prizes. Teaching performance is scored. Publication output is translated into numerical points. Research projects are awarded monetary grants based on intrinsic merit as well as relative merit (in comparison with other projects). 

One thing is worth bearing in mind in the midst of all this: 

Our worth does not depend on how much value other people put on our lives.

Our worth stems from how much GOD values us.

And this is how much God values us: He saw that we were going about our messed-up lives and would have no hope of joining Him in heaven by our own efforts. But because He loved us so much, He decided that He would pay the highest price for us — He would sacrifice His own beloved Son, Jesus, for us. God sent His perfect Son, Jesus, down from the beautiful glory of heaven to this earth, to die a horrible, painful death on a cross, just so that WE could have a place in heaven with Him if we choose to believe in Jesus.

The Bible tells us:

“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8 )

“Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” (1 Peter 3: 18)

God did not sacrifice His son for people who were grateful to Him and who already loved Him. That would have been difficult enough. But God sacrificed his Son whom He loved intensely, for people who couldn’t care less about Him or His Son, just so that we could have the hope of joining Him in heaven. That’s how much love God has in His heart for us. That’s how much we mean to God.

So, regardless of what society or our families or our employers or our employees think of us, whether they think highly of us or nothing of us, the truth is that we are all valuable in God’s eyes. We are all worth the life of Jesus, His Son.

We (including me) need to stop calculating our worth based on what people think of us, and we need to start remembering that our worth is equal to what GOD was prepared to give for us.

And one other little thing: no matter what we think of others who cross our paths in this life, they are worth the life of Jesus, God’s Son, too. That’s something we need to remember as well.

.  

The photograph of the old-fashioned cash register was taken in 2008 in the Colman Mustard Shop in Norwich, UK.