God Knows What We're Worth

A certain motivational speaker was wanted to make a point.  He pulled a crisp $20 bill out of his wallet and held it up.  The speaker asked, "Raise your hand if you would like this $20 bill."  Hands quickly went up across the auditorium.  The speaker then crumpled the bill into a little ball and asked again, "would anyone still like this bill."  And again, nearly every hand went up.

"Okay," the speaker said.  He spit on the bill, threw it on the ground, and squished it into the podium.  He then picked the soiled and disheveled bill up and asked the crowd again, "does everybody still want this?"  The crowd was not detoured from their previous exuberance for the bill.  The speaker then explained that his damage to the $20 bill did nothing to change the value of the bill, and did nothing to subtract form its desirability.

Humanity's relationship with God is kind of like that.  We are the crumpled and soiled $20 bills.  Yet no matter how damaged we may be, our value to God never diminishes.  God loves us despite our dings and dents.  He loves us for our true worth, no matter our tattered state.

As Paul writes in Romans, "but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8)."  Unfortunately, many people believe that God won't accept them until they are undefiled.  The reality is that God accepts us when we are defiled so that He can clean us with the washing of His Word and His Spirit.  This should be comforting.  For no matter the circumstances that have beaten and damaged us, God is there to dust us off.  It all comes down to faith.  God knows our worth and loves us for it.  All He asks from us is devotion and love.