"The Lord knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time, and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. But the wicked shall perish; And the enemies of the Lord, like the splendor of the meadows, shall vanish. Into smoke they shall vanish away." Psalm 37:18-20 (NKJV)
If taken by ourselves and measured against God who created us, God against whom we have, even if by our own thoughts, rebelled, we would have no real, distinguishable, value. Yet He assigns us a value of the highest order- a value worthy of His own terrible and personal sacrifice in order to become able to present us with it. And this speaks nothing of our character, but of God's - perfect in every facet- righteous, just, generous, and graceful beyond any capacity of mankind on his own to achieve. So how do we measure up in this equation? Where do we fit into this order of God?
Mankind left to his own reasoning has so often devised his own measure of his worth and has allegedly elevated himself, but that measure is one that defies God's own value assignment and testifies to man's further emerging rebellion against the far higher and supreme deity that created him. Our only worthiness is found in Christ's grace to have saved us from ourselves and from the murdering enemy of God who would see us perish with himself if he could. As God's true children, the value that we truly hold is established by the willingness of Christ to be obedient to His own death on the cross- not any perishing thing that we might hold up to establish some supposed elevated stature among men. The truth is beyond our own reach to establish and with that, our value also, because the truth of everything is established by God and not by the limited and sin infected reasoning of men. We may deny it, we may discover it, but we don't establish it. It came before us and is out of our human reach.
How we actually measure up to become of such a high value is truly determined by having found our knees, if not our faces, before God- believing Him and finding ourselves in submission to His establishment of truth and assuming our place before Him in obedience. If we do not find ourselves there, then it's possible that we will have no place, no value, and no measure in the end, because we will have made ourselves of no account, corrupted, and unworthy of the purpose of our own creation and birth- a condition made by our own choice to reject what God created us in order to offer us through Christ. We who belong to Christ make no mistake of allowing any possibility of ourselves being deceived by generations of man's arrogance, carnality and humanism, or by the cunning enemy of our souls. Truth was established by God before mankind and our closest and our most dear connection to that truth is found in the dictations of our God in the whole of His Word and through the counsel of The Holy Spirit to make it clear to us. That's why I continue to bring up our need to be in possession of the truth by seeking it out in what God's already told us that He has established in scripture. That truth becomes our defense against deception, our access to the wealth of His promises, the revelation of who we are, but so far more importantly, ... who God is.
If we actually measure ourselves, or allow ourselves to be measured by any measure other than that which God has declared (no higher and no lower), then having disbelieved God, we relegate ourselves to a value that may well perish with us if we don't repent - because believing God is the first step toward our grace-offered value.
"But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: “I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.” And again: “I will put My trust in Him.” And again:
“Here am I and the children whom God has given Me.” Hebrews 2:9-13 (NKJV)
To arrive with Christ, to be that child of God, saved by His suffering and death justified by His resurrection, and being allowed into the very presence of Father God in His glory is the highest measure of value anyone could possess and immeasurably higher than that value attained by any other source. What greater thing could we seek than to accept and honor than the value that God offers us over any other?!
The measurement of the One who gives us life is the only one that really matters ... and that will of course be proven in the end.
We are redeemed by The Father who sent Christ to pay the price for our redemption, saved by the price of Christ's sacrifice, and are justified by His resurrection by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are forgiven, we are made worthy and appointed such high value by the same God who created us. His own suffering proves our value and no other calling or measurement of stature comes close to the one that God Himself gives us!
In Scripture...
"He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?" Micah 6:8 (NKJV)
“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good? Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God, also the earth with all that is in it." Deuteronomy 10:12-14 (NKJV)
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