Pastor Devotions: Everything is So Expensive

By Pastor Kevin Barnhart

Spring Grove Evangelical Free

Have you noticed higher prices these days? Of course you have.  This has been such a strange season and what things cost is hard to keep up with.  It could be the price of eggs going up and then down.  There are so many things we might pay attention to, some watch the price of gas like a hawk, while others bring their calculators to the grocery store.

While we pay so much attention to some many things, have you ever thought about how much you cost?  What are you worth?  Some would go immediately to net worth.  But you are worth far more than your net worth.  Others would look at a question like that as an exercise in positive mental attitudes or having a high self-esteem.  Pumping ourselves up with positive self-talk.  Let me humbly suggest that is only scratching the surface of the question.  Your worth as a person goes far deeper than positive self-image.  To answer that profound question what are you worth you will have to settle another question – who gets to decide that for you?  There are people who will tell you what they are worth.  The problem with letting someone else tell you is they will inevitably tell you based on their value system.  If they are into sports, your value is commensurate to the value system.  You see this in families; if the family values something, the children often pull toward or away from these values. 

What if it wasn’t others that decided your worth?  What if your worth wasn’t decided by how many likes you get on your social media account of choice?  So how would you figure out how much your worth?

What if God decided that for you?  Maybe you don’t know where you are at with God, maybe you haven’t spoken in years, so you don’t think He has an opinion on your worth.  What if you were mistaken in this belief.  What if God has transformational beliefs about your transcendent worth? 

In an age of inflation, consider for just a moment how expensive you are.  What does God say that you are worth?  You are worth Jesus’ blood.  Let that in, God wanted to be in eternal relationship with you so badly that He sent His son, and the cost of this was nothing less than Jesus’ life.  You were ransomed with the life of Christ.  So, what are you worth – more than you can possibly take in.  The Apostle Paul invites us into the cosmic magnitude of God’s love for you, and for me.  Nothing can separate you from this love, a love that sees you as precious and worth the highest sacrifice in heaven.  Your price is far beyond the prices we can’t afford. No, to God you are priceless. 

Would knowing that is how God sees you change how you see Him?  Would that knowledge change you?  For people of faith, knowing that love changes everything. 

I pray that your heart can begin to absorb the magnitude of God’s love for you, and that he paid such a price for you, because to Him you are priceless.