“But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” Romans 5:8-9

You have tremendous value to God. You might not have value to others or may not even value yourself, but the One who owns it all values you enough to pay the greatest ransom that has ever been paid just to give you the opportunity to have a relationship with Him. The kicker? He did this for you before you could do one thing for Him or even think one good thought about Him. This is the definition of God’s unconditional love!

The last couple of weeks we have written of our worth to God. To give us some context, we’ve looked at our worth to Him through the lens of economic theory. We determined the old economics lesson still rings true: that the ultimate value of an object is determined by the price someone is willing to pay for it. The object doesn’t set its own value, and neither does the seller for that matter. According to this principle, we have astronomical value to God!

Think about it. What did He give up to give us the opportunity to come back to Him safe and sound? That’s right! The most valuable commodity in the Universe—the precious blood of Christ. Now, if your price was the most valuable substance in God’s Creation, and God paid it, what does that mean for your value to Him?

Friends, in the world you may not have many, or any, that would give up much for you. You may not be very valuable to them. Net worth? You couldn’t fill a starter kit aquarium fish net with it! Yet you have monumental value to Jesus according to the rate set by the price of your eternal redemption. He gave up so much for us, more than we acknowledge, more than we realize.

What did Jesus give up for us? His life? Sure, but some would argue that this was just a temporary sacrifice and thus not as meaningful because, after all, he did come back to life and now lives forevermore. This is true: his blood sacrifice, the life he gave, was revived, but you do realize he gave up more than that, right?

In Philippians 2 we read that Jesus gave more than a temporal gift to secure our ransom from sin and Hell. In verse 7 we read of Jesus that he “…made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.” Think about that. Do you realize what that means? Jesus was God, eternal Spirit, all-powerful, yet he decided to lower himself forever to become one of us so we could have the opportunity to become more like him and his Father!

I don’t know that our finite minds can really comprehend the ramifications of this right now, but I’m sure that throughout eternity we will be ever thankful for this huge sacrifice.

Why would Jesus do this? Why would God our Father, our Maker, desire this of Jesus for us? Because they both value us. We are precious in their sight. Evidently there’s something about humanity that they treasure and they were willing to give all they could to secure a relationship with us.

So, brothers and sisters, the next time you’re feeling down, the next time you’re sure you’re worthless to everyone you know, just know this—God values you. He paid the highest price ever paid for anything to give you the choice to reconnect with Him.

Greg Crum is the pastor of Calvary Temple in Lovely.