Season 1, Episode 8: You are Valuable

You are Valuable

Picture with me for just a minute, you come home from work after a long day you're tired, you look like a mess. You slump on your couch with your work clothes on, and you pull up your Snapchat to respond to somebody who Snapchatted you a while back and you look at the image reflected back to you and you let out an audible, "whoa." You wonder to yourself what people think when they've had to spend all day looking at you like that. You put away Snapchat and you move on and you go and open up Instagram. And after seeing your slouch self on the front facing camera, you're then faced with summer pictures of people at the beach, girls in sundresses, guys with their shirts off and six pack abs, and filters that make the scene look perfect. You find yourself feeling bad for yourself and feeling bad about yourself, that you don't look good. You've really got nothing special going on and you end up scrolling through Instagram and different social media quietly hoping that you would find somebody that looked worse than you so that you could feel good about yourself by comparison. It's unfortunate, maybe it's a little bit embarrassing to even talk about, but every one of us have been there at some point in our lives. 

Even more than just comparing ourselves and worrying about how we look, we've placed our value in something that wasn't very valuable. Commercials, magazines, and TV shows tell us that you were at your most valuable when you're attractive. If you look just the right way, that's what makes you the best version of yourself. But I believe that there's a promise of God that tells a very different story. It says that it's not just what you look like. It's not just what you do, but it's who you are. 

We are Created in God’s Image

Way back in the book of Genesis, there's this incredible story of God creating mankind and creating the world. It says in Genesis 1:27, "So God created mankind in his own image and the image of God he created them. Male and female, he created them." Out of all the things that God created man was the only creation that he said he created in his own image. 

And so I wanna tell you today that you are good because God made you in his image. That doesn't mean that we're perfect. That doesn't mean that we don't need a savior. There are other scriptures that tell us we're part of a fallen world. Scripture says, "We've all fallen short of the glory of God." And so there's this incredible redemptive story of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, but all of that sin and all none of that takes away from the idea that God created us in his image. 

I wanna share with you a different way to describe this, and I haven't had the privilege yet of having or raising a kid. From the things I've read and the conversations I've had, I know it's a really special thing to be able to raise a child and to have one of your own.

And there's a lot of really cool different things, knowing you brought a life into the world, getting to see a child grow up and being part of their life in a meaningful way. And while all those things are great, Max Lucado shares about a little bit different perspective. When he was writing his book, Unshakeable Hope, at the time, his family was expecting a granddaughter and he paints this beautiful image, and I wanna share it with you just real quick. 

He said, "Can I tell you something about that infant? I love her. She has done nothing to earn my love, but I love her. She's never sung me a song or danced me a dance. She has done nothing yet. I love her already. Why? Why do I love her so? Because she carries some of me a small part for sure, but a part of me nonetheless." He goes on to compare this incredible love for his granddaughter, for how God loves us. "Why does God love you with an everlasting love? It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with whose you are. You are his, you carry a part of him. There is something of him in you. He made you in his image. He stamped his name on your heart. He breathed life into your lungs." what an incredible image. Sometimes, we hear those words and we hear things like that and we kind of distance ourself from it and we don't really take into account what this really truly means.

If you've ever created something with your bare hands or you've ever done something from start to finish, that took a long time it took a lot of energy, let me give you an example as somebody that, that doesn't have a child. Maybe I can speak to this a little bit differently, but a while back, my wife and I, we got into a kick of watching Shark Tank. A TV show where these inventors bring up these ideas to millionaires in hoping that they will invest in their company, they bring in these ideas and these companies and these inventions that, that not only did they start on their own, but they've worked it and they've worked so hard and they've poured their life sweat, tears, and blood into it. And you can see that in how much they care about it from start to finish. They've been there, they've worked it, they've given everything they had to make it a success, and because of that, they've got an incredibly vested interest in the product and in the company. It means something to them. Even if they sold the whole thing right now, I guarantee you they would watch it. They would see how it grew and how it developed into something. 

I believe in a lot of the same ways and in a much more intimate sense, we can get the idea of how God looks at us, every single one of us. God created us in his hands. He formed us in our mother's womb. He set out the path for our lives even before we could do anything at all for him. He loved us before we could give him anything back. God loved us. When you were in your deepest and darkest sin, and you were continually grieving him, he still loved you. He saw that part of him deep inside of you that had been covered up by sin and darkness, and he loved you because he knew what he created you to be.

God Love You because of Who You Are: His

He loves you because at your deepest level, you are a creation and image bearer of God. In my life, I've grown up in church and I spent a lot of my early years and some of my early teenage years worried that I was gonna disappoint God. I felt like in a lot of ways, maybe he was waiting on me to make a mistake so that he could make me feel bad or convict me or beat me down and I even had questions in my mind of maybe God wouldn't forgive me again, he would finally give up on me. I had this view of God that was sitting there waiting to punish me. In reality, throughout scripture we get a view of God that is, that's different than that. A view of God that is, that's much more loving than that. 

There's a story in Luke 15:11-32, and if you wanna read it for yourself, please do, I really recommend that. But I'm gonna quickly jump through the story because I wanna explain something in this story. There was a man that had two sons. One day his youngest son came to him and asked for his inheritance, even though his father wasn't dead yet. At that time, and even now we can understand that was a really disrespectful thing for him to do. It was really a terrible thing. He gave him half of everything and the son took the inheritance, went to the city, and he squandered it. He lived and did whatever he wanted to. He lived the high life. One day he looked up, realized he was broke, he had nothing to eat, he was feeding pigs, and he decided he would go back to his father's house and ask to be one of the servants as the son was walking back. 

The father saw him out in the distance and he ran to him and he gave him gifts and he threw him a party because his son came back. After everything the son did after all the pain and hurt he had caused him, the father still welcomed him with open arms and wrapped him in a hug. Why? Because the father didn't care nearly as much about the stuff as he did about the boy. He didn't care what he did while he was gone, he only cared that he loved him and he wanted him to come home. 

For each of us, God looks at us the same way. He values us so much because we are his. He created us and we are image bearers of God. So no matter how far we go, no matter what mistake we make, he's there waiting with open arms. 

So what's the promise here? I started off talking about how we value the wrong things and how we, in everyday life, we base our own value based on our performance. Even if we're just focused on how we look it's a performance. We're basing our own value off of how good we are, how impressive we look or how good we do at work. We base our value off of things that really don't matter, and that's what the world wants us to place our value in. 

The story of scripture is that you are valuable because of whose you are, not who you are. And a lot of times the enemy will whisper in our ears that we aren't good enough, that nobody loves you, you're not attractive enough, you're not smart enough, you don't have any talents. And more than anything you aren't valuable. But I wanna tell you right now that the promise of God shows us we are valuable because God created us in His image. He created us and he loves us. 

We are loved by God regardless of how we perform in this worldly standard. And even whenever we fail God, even whenever we feel like we don't measure up to God's expectation of us, we can be reminded of the story of the Prodigal Son where the Father came running and wrapped his son up with open arms, even though. Even though he had failed him so badly, we carry that little piece of God inside of us, that image of God, and he loves you no matter what. 

I wanna share just a few verses with you, and I hope you'll hang on to these as a promise that whenever you feel like you're not valuable, whenever you feel like you're not good enough, that you can turn and you can hang on to these.

Luke 12:7, "You are more valuable to God. Then a whole flock of sparrows."

Psalm 139:13, "For you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb."

In 1 Corinthians 6:20, "You are not your own. You were bought at a price." You are valuable to God. He paid a price for you and you are valuable to him.

You are valuable to God because he created you in his image. He could not love you anymore based on anything you do, and I hope you'll cling to that whenever you feel discouraged. 

We'll see you next time. 

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. We pray that it has helped you in your walk with God. If you don't mind, don't forget to subscribe, and drop a comment. There's a lot of other content that we're working on right now, so we will see you very soon.