What are you worth?

Many years ago my dad gave me a rare Mickey Mantle baseball card.  I remember asking my dad what the card was worth.  He explained to me that the value of the card completely depends upon what someone is willing to pay for it.

That is exactly what The Cross of Christ demonstrates and is captured for us in John 3:16:  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  The Cross doesn’t just show us how incredibly broken we are (although it shows us that!); it also shows us just how incredibly valuable we are as well.  Look at the price God was willing to pay to have us!

CS Lewis, in his classic book The Problem of Pain, put it this way:  You asked for a loving God?  Well you have one…the consuming fire Himself!  Whether we like it or not, God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want.  And once more we are embarrassed by the intolerable compliment by too much love not too little.

How broken are we?  We are so broken it took nothing less than the death of God’s own son to fix us.  But by sending His Son we also find out just how valuable (how loved!) we are as well.  We are not loved too little by God.  We are loved too much!  Sending His own son is truly, as Lewis explains, the intolerable compliment that speaks to our value.  Just how valuable are we?  We are so valuable that the Son of God Himself came to the cross willingly just so he could have a relationship with us!  He was willing to pay the ultimate price!  If you want to know the answer to the question, “What are you worth?”, simply look at the Cross.  If you alone were the only one worth having, He still would have come to The Cross to have you.  That is how valuable you are! That is how loved you are!