What is Jesus worth to me?
I woke up at 4:00AM one morning and could not escape this question. If someone asked me that question I would
respond with what most Christians would respond with… everything! That is the proper answer, right? In fact, I did a little experiment and asked
Emma and Lola (my 10 and 8 year old girls) what Jesus was worth to them and I got
that exact same answer… everything! But
I think it is too easy to say this and not truly live it. I mean let’s really look at this, which is
more valuable to me if I could only choose one or the other: Jesus or my wife;
Jesus or my children; Jesus or my comfort; Jesus or my money; Jesus or my security? I think in the past, I have been very quick
to give the “church” answer without truly counting the cost. Jesus warns us against this in Luke 14, "For
which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit
down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?"
When I was in college, I read a book by Dr. Jerry Pipes and Victor Lee called Family to Family: Leaving a Lasting Legacy. It discussed the importance of having a
family mission statement. I thought that
it was a really good idea at the time, but with most things in college, I
rapidly moved on to the next thing without putting it into practice. When we recently made the decision to move to
New York to pursue full time mission work, I thought it was important to define our
family’s mission. A mission statement is a statement of
the purpose of a company, organization or person or its reason for existing.
So what is our reason for existing? Isaiah 43:7 states, “everyone who is
called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” God
created us for His glory. This is why we
exist. After pondering this, I prayed
that God would show us what He wanted our mission statement to be. The following morning is when I woke up with
that question on my mind. What is Jesus
worth? What is Jesus worth to me? Immediately, Jesus’ parables in Matthew 13
came to mind.
In Matthew 13:44, Jesus tells a parable, “The kingdom of
heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it
again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that
field.” Here we see that this man sold
ALL he had to obtain this precious treasure and he didn’t hold on to one
thing. This treasure was worth more than
ALL he had. He didn’t do it begrudgingly
either. It says he did it with joy! Jesus told another parable a few verses down
in 45-46 that drives home the same point.
This guy finds a precious pearl and sells everything he has to obtain
it. The theme is that once these guys
see the worth of what they have found, everything else they had obtained up
until that point in their life was not important to them anymore. Paul put it this way in Philippians.
Everything else is rubbish compared to Jesus. Now Paul is in prison when he is writing
these words, so these words about him losing all for the sake of the Jesus hold some weight. In Phil. 3:7-8, he
writes, “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of
Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing
worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I
consider them garbage that I may gain Christ.” Paul had it all, status, education, power, what he thought
was righteousness, but he says what he once considered gain, he now considers
it loss for the sake of Christ. Jesus is
now his only profit. He continues on to say he has lost all things and considers
them garbage, that he may gain Christ. I
like the way the King James puts it that he considers them dung that he may win
Christ. So this is not garbage that
someone might want to go through to pick out some useful items for re-purposing. This is dung compared to Jesus – no one would
want to touch it. And Jesus is the
prize. How much is Jesus worth? Jesus said he was worth everything. Paul said not only is he worth everything,
but everything else is garbage compared to Him.
So I think the question that should be asked is why is Jesus
worth everything to me? Why is he
precious to me? The definition of precious is rare, worth a
lot of money; or too valuable or important to be wasted or used carelessly; or
greatly loved. Peter talks of Christ’s
preciousness in 1 Peter 2, “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious
cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” Now
to you who believe, this stone is precious...” Regarding these verses, John Piper said, “When Peter says, 'To you who believe he is
precious,' he is showing what distinguishes believers from unbelievers. He
is not saying that there are a few really spiritual believers who desire Christ
and feel his preciousness. He is saying that if you are a believer, if you are
saved, for you Christ is precious. If you do not feel his preciousness, if you
do not desire him like a baby desires milk, examine the roots of your faith and
see if they are sucking up life from the precious blood of Christ and the
promises of God, or if they are simply curled around the dry rocks of habit,
tradition, custom, form, peer pressure. Is Christ an allurement to your
affections, or just duty to be performed? Are you moved by desire for him, or
by the expectations of family and church?"
After considering all this, I jotted down our
family mission statement:
Our family will seek to glorify God our Father
by helping people see the incomparable worth of Jesus our Lord and Savior
through the power of the Holy Spirit.
He is worthy and
he is precious. He is precious to me
because He lived a life I could not live and died a death I deserved to die so
that I might be forgiven of my sin and reconciled to the God who made me for
his glory. How much is Jesus worth to me?
All my pride,
power, and position? He is worth it!
All my fear,
failure, and insecurity? He is worth it!
All my money,
toys, and possessions? He is worth it!
All my pain,
suffering, and tears? He is worth it!
He is worth more
than this world could ever offer me or this life could ever throw at me. He is
worth it!
Our desire as we follow
Jesus to New York is to show people what Jesus is really worth. The Bangladeshi Muslims that we will be
reaching out to hold Jesus in high regard as a prophet of Islam, but he
is not of infinite worth to them. By the way, we
do the same thing. We ascribe worth to
Jesus, but then we hold on to things that are no better than garbage or dung
compared to Jesus in reality because deep down they are worth more to us. This is what the rich young ruler did. He wanted Jesus, but he wanted his riches
more. If only he could see that Jesus
was worth infinitely more than any riches he could ever amass. This is what we want all people to see –
Jesus is the ultimate treasure in this life and in His kingdom to come!
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