Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father remind us of where our value comes from. Father, you have made us. We are the work of your hands. With our sin we have broken and stained and shattered your image. But by the work of your Son Jesus we are reborn, made new, a new creation. Help us to embrace your work in us and in this sin-broken world, Father. In the name of Jesus, help us to see ourselves and each other through your eyes. And help us to live by your vision of ourselves and each other. Help us to live on the inside and the outside by your Will. Amen.
Your Morning Song: "Give Me Your Eyes" by Brandon Heath
Your Morning Scripture: Genesis 1:27
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
...
Who we say with our living has value reveals our practical definition of the word "value." Who is worthy of our time? Who is worthy of our efforts? Who is worthy of our attention? Our affection? Our love? Who is worthy? And why?
All humans are made in the image of God. And that is the beginning and the end of how we ought to define "value." Moses, led by the Spirit of God, is speaking to either the Hebrew slaves saved from out of Egypt, or to their children. And he is saying that their value comes from God's making of them, not from how many bricks they could make for their slave masters.
We are no different. Our value comes from the fact that God made us. The value of other comes from the fact that God made them. Why do we so often and so easily act like this isn't true? Why do we define the value of ourselves and others differently than God does?
Why do we struggle to value others the way God does? Why do we greet some on a Sunday morning and not others? Why do we seek out some in the grocery store isles and hide from others? Why do we visit some and not others? Why are our closest friends from outside the church? Why do we delight in being served but avoid serving?
Why do we struggle to see our own God-given value? Why do we tear ourselves down? Why do we refuse to believe the good gifts God has given us in how He made us? Why do we constantly and unfairly compare our lives to the lives of others? Thinking that they have it better and are better? Why do we think that our worship and our prayers and our sacrifices aren't good enough for God? Why do we sometimes act like God is going to be angry at us and reject us if we mess up?
It is a pandemic.
Too often don't see ourselves and others as valuable on God's terms because He made us in His image.
We have been made by God, for God. And we should treat ourselves according to our God-given value. And we should treat others, whether saved or unsaved, according to their God-given value.
May we risk a real view of ourselves in the mirror that is the Bible today and be encouraged and disciplined and matured by what we find there.
