Christ’s Worth

“Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through Him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see – such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through Him and for Him. He existed before anything else, and He holds all creation together. Christ is also the head of the church, which is His body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So He is first in everything. For God in all His fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through Him God reconciled everything to Himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. This includes you who were once far away from God.” (Colossians 1:15-21a NLT)

As you rest quietly and allow those powerful words to wash over you, how does it make you feel? On the one hand it makes me feel like a grain of sand on the beaches of the world: insignificant, lost in the masses. But on the other hand it causes me to raise my head and puff my chest with pride that the God of the universe and everything in it is MY SAVIOR and LORD!

Did you catch that last sentence? “This includes you who were once far away from God.” Do you understand we are nothing in comparison with Christ? And I can “hear” some saying: “You don’t know who I am! I’ve got billions of dollars and I’m worth more than anyone else in the world!”

And I would say to that person: “One day you’ll stand before the great God described above and if money and material things is all you have, you’ll be nothing and have nothing! You’ll be a broken, desperate slave to sin and be sentenced to the same eternal torment as every other person who counted Him as nothing.”

It boggles my mind that the Apostle Paul knew Jesus so well Jesus was willing to share those things about Himself. What’s He sharing with you these days? He’s sharing with me that He is preeminent in everything, And I can either bow before Him in worship and serve Him as my King, or I can think more highly of myself than I should and spend eternity in regret for my shortsightedness.

George Whitefield wrote: “Christ is worth all, or he is worth nothing.” What is He worth to you? We’re too often like the small child who when offered the choice between a penny or a dollar bill will choose the penny because if fits better in their small hand and they can roll it and play with it. We’re just as blind when we push ourselves to earn dollars and cents and ignore the value of the King of kings and Lord of lords.

We want to believe we’ll have time for “that” when we retire. We’ll burn out chasing a dream and ignore the dream our Savior has for us. We have a “vision” of what we want to become and miss the vision He has for us. That’s what I missed when I was young. I wanted to go into “ministry” when I was first saved because I thought that was the best way to invest my life. But I wasn’t seeing the big picture.

Some of my best “ministry” was done in the secular work I did earning money to support my “ministry.” Some of the most powerful “ministers” I know have never preached a sermon or been paid a cent by the church. They’re people who found their worth in Christ and illustrated His worth in and through their lives.

I hope you and I can be people like that in this season of our lives.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊