I'm going to start this with something that you might not want to hear.
As a human being in & of yourself... you have no intrinsic value.Think about it for a minute. Compared to the entire universe, you are a speck. To your government, you are a number, a statistic, a few dollars in taxes, a Social Security check. Outside of the community in which you live & the social circles in which you spend your time, few people know your name. Unless you have a pen pal or distant relative in some other country, there's probably no one more than a few thousand miles away who knows of your existence. To most of the world, you're virtually invisible, & when you leave it, you'll leave few marks save for the children you may have born, the names you might have passed on, & the six feet of earth housing that shell that once carried you.
As far as theology is concerned, I've always struggled with the idea that humanity is worthless. Personally, I've certainly had a history of feeling worthless, but I can't tell another person that they're not worth something. Praise the Lord that the Gospel isn't about that. In fact, the Gospel is entirely the opposite.It's true that in & of ourselves, we have no intrinsic value. The world pins a value on us based on the things we do (or don't do) - the pricetag is attained over time, & can change with any action or inaction. Without these things, we have no value. In the larger scope of things, we are dust, & the work of our hands is for naught. "Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 2:11)
Now, here's the beauty of it. In this same existence in which we have no value, we have infinite value for one reason: we are a creation of the King of Kings, wholly and dearly loved. In this same moment in which we are worthless, we are priceless simply because He loves us.
Scripture speaks endlessly of the love lavished on us by our Father. In Song of Songs, the "beloved" or "bride" (also used very commonly throughout Scripture to refer to the Church) is described, just to name a few examples, as "like a lily among thorns" (2:2), "all beautiful... without flaw" (4:7), "my dove, my perfect one" (6:9). In Matthew, Jesus himself says, "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" (6:26) To the One who created us, we are worth the world. To Him we are worth life as a servant when He is King. To Him we are worth death when He lives forever. To Him we are worth everything that He does not deserve. Praise & glory & honor to His name.
I began this post by telling you that in & of yourself, you have no intrinsic value, & that the world places value on you according to what you do (or don't do). Even to God, your worth does not come from yourself. Your worth comes from Him. He places a pricetag on you, just like the world does, but His reads SOLD. "You are not your own; you were bought at a price." (1 Cor. 6:19-20) His life, His death, His resurrection, His salvation, His grace, His mercy, His love have paid the price for you. You are worth all these things & more to the King of glory, not because of anything you've done, not because of your job or your looks or the family or class or neighborhood you were born into, but because of Him. In Genesis He created us from the dust, & in Christ He has made us worth more than the most precious jewels regardless of our sin & our shame.
Far too many times, I've been told by friends that they feel worthless - for working dead-end jobs, for pursuing degrees that won't get them any further than more dead-end jobs, for self-image issues, for family issues, for not being the object of some earthly person's affections, & the list goes on. I've been in the same boat, & I always wished I knew what to say to them. Tonight I say to them, & to myself, more than anything in this entire world I want you to know how much He loves you. I want you to know just how priceless you are. Most days, I still can't wrap my head around the fact that the same God who holds the world in the palm of His hand WANTED to die for me just so I could have some faint inkling of how much He loves me. I know it's hard for you. No one ever said that belief was an easy thing. Trust me - no, trust Him. You are everything to Him, just let Him take you in.
This entire post sounded so much better in my head, there was so much more I wanted to say, but I can't even remember half of it now, I'm just so caught up in a Paul-esque doxology right now & I love it.
Blessings & peace & so much of His love to you all.
