Valuable

V is for valuable

I wanted to say this is my favorite word describing who we are in Christ. I feel like I’ve already said that a couple of times during this series. I tend to have lots of favorites. My favorite color is white- as a technicality because I love all colors. White being the accumulation of all colors –  means they can all be my favorite!  When I was six my mom wanted to give away a sundress that I had outgrown.  I threw my little body across the dress and begged her to keep it, because it was my favorite.  I don’t know that there was anything significant about that dress in particular, but at that moment little else mattered to me than saving my favorite dress.

So, as we move to my at-the-moment favorite word, I can’t believe our journey is almost over.  Only four more letters to go after today.  Two of them (x and y) will be interesting – at this point I’m trying to figure out how to use x-ray or yellow or yummy or xanthan.

 “You weren’t an accident. You weren’t mass produced. You aren’t an assembly-line product. You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on the earth by the Master Craftsman.”
Max Lucado

At our core, we all want to be wanted. We want to matter.

Valuable is described as treasured, appreciated, cherished, precious as opposed to useless, worthless, trash.Too many of us have believed words other broken people have used to describe and define us believing we are worthless garbage.  That’s all a lie.  God, our creator has this to say about you:

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Psalm 139: 13-16

Did you get that? God made you wonderfully unique with a purpose. In Matthew, God explains exactly how much He loves you. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” Matt. 10:29-31. A sparrow is the offering the poorest people would bring.

One of my favorite verses (out of like a billion)  is Ephesians 3:17-18 ” And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.”  Sometimes when I can’t go to sleep at night I think about Christ’s love – how wide is the widest something can be? How long is the longest something can be? How about how high or how deep?

You were redeemed with the blood of Christ. “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” 1 Pet 1:18-19. You’d have to really love someone to die for them.  I can count on one hand the number of people I would die for.  But you mean that much to Jesus – don’t ever again let anyone tell you you aren’t valuable!