In our world, we value things by how much people are willing to pay for them. In 2015, a Vincent Van Gogh painting sold for $66 million. The Hope Diamond would sell for a measly $350 million. You can pick up a Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupe for only $492,000. Want to live in a celebrity mansion, you could have picked up JLo’s house for about $9.9 million in 2016.
These are all things that we value in the world, but how much are you worth? You could determine that by what you make each year at your job - $35,000, $50,000, $100,000 or more. According to statistical analysis studies, a human life is worth around $5 million. Not bad, right? Probably to your parents, spouse, and kids, you are priceless.
Well, there was a point in time when God determined a price for every human life. It was the life of His Son. In order to study this, we need to go back to the beginning of time.
In the beginning, God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) decided to create a world where god-like beings to live and be in relationship with God. The Word/Son created a perfect universe, perfect earth, perfect vegetation, perfect animals, and then a perfect man. From the man he created a perfect woman. God then gave them a perfect paradise to live in and there was only one rule – don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
We all know the result, they ate from the forbidden tree and sin entered into the world, separating mankind from God. We see the second glimpse of how much God loves human kind, when He banned them from the Garden of Eden, where the tree of life was. Most people think this was harsh, but it was out of love, because God didn’t want people to live for eternity with the pain and shame of sin.
Instead, God devised a plan to bring mankind back into relationship and eventually restore paradise, but it was going to require a perfect human sacrifice. This was a difficult legal issue. God had given authority over the earth to Adam and when he and Eve chose to believe the serpent (satan), instead of God, they inadvertently passed authority over to the devil. In order to gain authority back, a perfect human would have to be sacrificed for the sins of all mankind, but because the sin nature was passed through the men to the children, there were no perfect humans (in fact, far from it).
Once again, God showed His extreme love for mankind by sending His only begotten Son to be born of a virgin by the Holy Spirit (so there would be no sin nature passed on), grow in wisdom and stature as any human child would, remain sinless his whole life, and then die a sacrificial death to atone for all sin, past, present, and future.
What is the value of your life? Jesus died for YOU! Even if you think you are a good person, because of the sin nature (and the sins you have committed, such as lying, cheating, stealing, gossiping, and so on), you are on a slippery path to eternal torment in hell. That’s the bad news, the good news is that God valued you so much, He was willing to sacrifice His Son for you. Would you sacrifice one of your children for someone else? Say, a terrorist or sex offended? No human would do that, but God did.
Jesus’ blood on the cross of Calvary covered every sin you have committed and will commit. It’s called grace and it’s a free gift. God doesn’t even expect you to do anything to earn it. All you have to do is say “yes” to the offered gift. Say, “yes” to Jesus as your Savior. Give Jesus Lordship over your life (trust me, He will do a much better job with it than you have). Acknowledge that you are sinful and need a Savior. Then receive Jesus as that Savior and offer the rest of your life to Him. That’s it. No works required. Just a bit of faith that Jesus is who He said He was and that God will do what He says He will (which is easy to believe, because the Bible says that God can’t lie). Done deal! (if you accepted Jesus as your Savior for the first time, please email me at Rod@TrueDisciple.Info, so I can direct you to the next steps and be praying for you)
To God you are worth more than the Van Gogh, Hope Diamond, Rolls-Royce, and JLo’s mansion combined. No one would give their life for any of those, but Jesus gave His life for you!