The Worth Of Knowing

“Read it,” my three year old son said as he hands me the crumpled paper from his fortune cookie.

“‘The value lies not within any particular thing, but the desire placed on that thing,’” I read.

My daughter asked the natural followup question: “What does that mean?”

I think many Christians have heard sermons about how we were once wretches, dead in our sin, and useless to bring about our own salvation. Some may have even heard it taught that we were also once unlovable and repulsive and filthy rags before a holy God. Some may have directly or indirectly received the message that the only reason we are now loved by God and of any microscopic value to Him is because Jesus died on the cross and wiped our sins away.

In case it wasn’t clear “some” most definitely refers to me and “may have” undoubtedly means did. And it’s okay. Truly.

If you haven’t lived believing that you once were not just dead in your sins, but also essentially a gross worm in God’s eyes, let me paint the cheery picture for you. It’s going through life believing that now that you’re saved, God begrudgingly loves you. He may or may not like you depending how defeating that reoccurring sin is going. It’s dutifully carrying a holy amount of self-loathing day after day. It’s feeling ashamed that you have the audacity to hope you have some inherent value and worth apart from Jesus’ saving work in you.

I honestly thank God I survived.

It’s not “just” a self-worth issue. Or even “only” an problem with how we view the worth of other individuals (saved and unsaved). It’s a faulty view of God.

Let’s go back to what God says.

God saved Noah, his family, and some animals from the mass destruction of life on earth that came as God’s just punishment to humanity’s widespread and thorough wickedness. In other words, God flooded the entire earth. In some ways this judgement seems to follow the logic that people without Jesus are repulsive to God. But after Noah and his family leave the ark, God says something interesting:

“Whoever sheds human blood, by humans his blood will be shed, for God made humans in his image.” Genesis 9:6 CSB

Context is important, so read the passage for yourself, but my take away is that all life has value and, in particular, that human life has value because God made us in His image.

This value is not at all contingent on our level of goodness or whether we’re saved. After all, God said after the flood that “‘the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth onward’” (Genesis 8:21). God knows our condition full well and yet still says we are made in His image and therefore have worth and value to Him and deserve respect from other humans.

The phrase pops into my head again: “The value lies not within any particular thing, but in the desire placed on it.”

I was never repulsive to God. I was never unloveable. And neither was anyone else.

I can’t lose that value any more than I can get rid of God. It’s source is God making us in His image. We exist therefore we have value.

This isn’t a criticism of the belief of total depravity.

This is a criticism of not letting God define His creation’s worth.

From the time humans committed the first sin God has said two general things about humans: we are thoroughly sinful and we are immeasurably valuable to Him.

It doesn’t make any logical sense, but God says it again and again and again throughout Scripture.

Apart from Jesus’ work on the cross, I am totally depraved and yet totally loved.

In fact, I would argue that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross proves that God loved and valued us before He saved us.

“’But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭5‬:‭8‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“What does it mean?” my daughter asked. Kids ask surprisingly good questions.

What does it mean that you and I and every human everywhere throughout history has value woven into our very being and is unconditionally loved by God?