When my daughter was little she had a very unusual opinion of money. I would often have to send her to school with quarters to pay for her lunch because I didn’t have any dollar bills. She would complain and not want to take it with her. Finally one day I asked her why she didn’t like quarters, and she said “Because it's not the real money.”
I tried to explain to her that four quarters was the same amount of money as a dollar bill, just in a different form. It took a while before she understood and was fine with whatever I gave her.
Now it is years later, and her little brother seems to have the same opinion of money, only he prefers the kind that jingles. He has a giant piggy bank that he loves to drop coins into. A sweet neighbor of ours kindly gave him a dollar to spend the other day. When we got home, he found it in his backpack. He immediately took it out, wadded it up, and threw it in the garbage!
“That’s not good money, Momma.”
Of course, I retrieved it from the garbage, washed it off and laid it to dry on the counter, and proceeded to give him the same talk that I gave his sister about the value of money. I think he still prefers quarters regardless.
You know, a lot of the time people confuse the definition of Value and Worth. Although they are often used interchangeably when discussing things like money, they do have different definitions.
Worth is the total cost of a particular thing, while Value is the importance of what it means to a person. It’s easy for us to be able to look at a dollar bill and understand its value and worth, but what about when we look at ourselves or even at each other?
We may say that we do, but contrary to what we see unfolding in our world today, as Christians, we need to reexamine how the Lord views us in regards to worth and value. Why? Because when we understand how the Lord sees it, it will certainly change how we view ourselves and others.
You see, our worth to God came at a tremendous cost. John 3:16 says it best, that “…God so loved the world (You and I) that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Our worth came at the cost of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins.
If we were to look at each other and see that sacrifice instead of color, status, or wealth, we could in no way treat anyone with anything other than love. Because of that worth, that great cost, we are of the greatest of value to the Lord. So much so that there is nothing more important to Him than you and I.
There is nothing that he desires more than to love us, bless us and us. To God, there is no limit to our value. The biggest challenge is simply accepting God’s view. Thank goodness His view is far better than a kid with four quarters or a dollar bill!
