The Value of Your Life

As I have been reflecting this Easter Season (the time between Easter and Pentecost), the theme about the value of my life keeps cropping up in my thoughts.  In the world, there are all different values on a human life.  Some insurances companies may say your life is worth $100,000 or more, that's a lot of money.  I guess you pay for that coverage but still, why do we get money when people die?  What does God say the value of our life is?  

I can assure you that it is not so valuable that it is priceless, there is a price for your life and Jesus paid it. God wanted us to be with Him forever, that He sacrificed, the most valuable possession He had: His Son.  Jesus came to Earth with the ultimate goal to pay the price for each one of us.  That price you ask? Death.  We are all sinners.  God cannot be near sin.  If we are not with God, then we have no life.  So then we all deserve death.  

When Adam and Eve sinned for the first time in the Garden of Eden, God killed an animal to clothe them.  This is the first of many animal sacrifices that were to come to cover the sins of God's people.   For the Israelites, animal sacrifice could satisfy the wrath of God and cover their sins for a little while.  However, God knew that it would just be a temporary solution.  Jesus is the permanent solution. 

I tried to reflect on what Jesus truly went through those few days, thousands of years ago.  The entire time He was thinking of me and you and everyone one of His creations.  The prayers of anguish, the betrayal, the beatings, humiliation, and the nailing to the cross.  All of this done by those He had created and knit together.  He not only endured physical pain but also emotional and the worst of all spiritual.  Separation from His Father.  I can only imagine if I had as deep of a relationship with God the Father as Jesus did and suddenly that was ripped from me and God turned His back on me, I would be broken. 

Jesus endured all of this and more than we could ever understand to pay the price to keep you and me forever with Him.  He loves us that much to not just die but take on all the sins of the world and be treated as if He was a sinner, separating Himself from God even though He had never committed one sin.  That is true love and the best gift we could ever receive.  God's grace and mercy runs so deep, it's unfathomable, how much He values my life to pay for it.

So what does this mean for us?  Well since Jesus paid the price for our lives, we belong to Him.  "He has bought us back from the marketplace of sin" (phrase credit goes to Jackie Cagley, the teaching leader at my BSF class).  But we can also live now a life that has been paid for.  What do I mean by that?  All of our sins are forgiven because Jesus died for them.  How do you ask since Jesus died 2000 years ago?  Well since Jesus is fully man and God, He possess the qualities of infinite and eternal.  Since God has no beginning or end and cannot be measured, Jesus can be the sacrifice for every person and every sin committed, even into the future.  Isn't that awesome?!  So He was thinking of you and me on that cross and all the sins we would commit and will commit.  

We can live free from the burden, knowing that we don't have to die for our sins because they were paid for, a long time ago.  That doesn't mean we can keep sinning, it means we need to try our hardest to change and become more like Jesus.  We are works in progress but the goal is Jesus and we have His example in the Bible so there are no excuses.

Will you join me on this imperfect journey of following a Perfect God?  Please let me know if there is anything I can be praying about or for you!  God didn't create us to worship and learn about Him alone, He created us for community and communal worship.

In His Love,
A