November 5, 2019

Untold Value

A compilation

Audio length: 11:16
Download Audio (10.3MB)

I periodically need to remind myself of the value that God places on other human beings, even when I don’t know the other person or when he or she is very different from me.

But to be honest, that’s not natural for me to do. Every once in a while, though, I get a reminder, like reading about an incident that occurred in North Carolina in 1995. Ten-year-old Lawrence Shields was picking through a bucket of debris in a gemstone mine when a rock piqued his interest. “I just liked the shape of it,” he said. When he knocked off the dirt and grit that were clinging to it, and as he rubbed it on his shirt to polish it up, he saw that this was much more than just a rock. It turned out to be a sapphire. And not just any sapphire—a 1,061-carat sapphire!

Here’s the point: when we look at other people, we tend to focus on the outside, which is soiled by sin. We see the rebellion or failure, the bizarre lifestyle or proud attitude, and we often overlook the real value that’s on the inside—where each one of us is a gem of incalculable worth, created in the image of almighty God.

We, as individuals, are so valued and loved that God was willing to pay the infinite price of his Son’s death to clean away our sin and restore us to himself. So when you look at someone whose life has been thoroughly corrupted by sin, can you say to yourself, “Their life situation may be awful, but the image of God within them is awesome!’”

Can you look at the people you may have devalued because they’re different from you or poorer than you or less educated than you, and imagine the ultimate value that God attaches to them despite their circumstances? It’s like one of my favorite songs, “In Heaven’s Eyes,”¹ in which Phil McHugh pictured people as they appear to God and found no worthless losers and no hopeless causes.

When we see people from God’s perspective, all of a sudden we have a new inspiration to treat them with the same dignity, respect, and honor that we desire for ourselves. Does that sound naive? Maybe so. But apart from that divinely altered perception, I don’t have a chance of being obedient to Christ’s command that I love others as myself. It’s simply not going to happen.

That’s one reason why a motto of the church where I became a Christian is that people matter to God. All people. It’s a reminder to all of us that we need to see each other as having untold value in the eyes of Jesus.—Lee Strobel²

“God is no respecter of persons”

You see and hear it all the time—discrimination against minority races, minority religions, and minorities of all kinds, from governmental oppression and persecution to prejudiced individuals with their rude jokes and antagonistic behavior. What a stark contrast that is to the way God is and the way that He wants us to be! The Bible, God’s Word, tells us that “God is no respecter of persons,” which literally means “God shows no partiality.”³

In just about every country, lines are sharply drawn between the rich and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, the predominant race and the minority races. The mainstream majority invariably denigrates and demeans the minority.

The Bible says that in the last days “the love of many shall wax cold,”⁴ and this can be clearly seen in an increasingly hate-filled society. The news media is full of more and more headlines of bigotry, cruelty, and crimes against those who are different or who hold differing views from the majority.

As Christians, we must not let ourselves be influenced by or fall into society’s way of dealing with differences between people. God has given us a better way, and that is to love one another. But we can’t love or even sympathize with people unless we try to understand them, and we can’t truly understand them without putting ourselves in their place or trying to see things from their perspective.

God created people to be different, and He loves them all. His great love and grace reach out to all of His creations. Somebody said, “God spreads grace like a four-year-old spreads peanut butter. He gets it all over everything.”

God didn’t make some people who He loved less and others who He loved more. He doesn’t love people with a certain color of skin any more than He loves people with another color of skin. If we show a prejudicial, belittling, demeaning spirit toward others, it must hurt Him very much.

We are supposed to love all people with His love. Jesus gave His life for all humankind. He has shown the very greatest love possible by dying for every person. That’s how God loves. Can’t we love the same?—Maria Fontaine

Intrinsic human value

Christians believe in the intrinsic value of every human being because we’re created in God’s image. Nothing negates that image and the value it instills in every human being, not even sin. Every human bears that value throughout his or her life. This is why anything that violates that value is evil and sin…

Race has been used as an excuse throughout human history to subjugate and abuse other human beings. The Bible tells us that all of us trace our lineage to one man and woman that God created. Race isn’t relevant, then, to value because we all bear God’s image and share our ancestry to God’s original creation. We are all equally valuable human beings. And certainly the views we hold don’t make some less worthy than others. …

All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. While we call people to be reconciled to God, it doesn’t follow at all that some sins make some people less worthy, less valuable. In fact, it’s in virtue of every person’s inherent value as God’s creation that we cannot condone sin but also believe that every one of us is so loved that Jesus gave Himself to redeem us out of our sin. The Bible doesn’t devalue people by identifying our sin. God calls us to admit our sin precisely because we are His valuable and loved creations and He wants to reconcile us to Himself. And even rejecting this offer cannot negate someone’s intrinsic value.

Because the Bible tells us that we are all God’s creations with equal dignity and value, this is why Christianity as a worldview is superior to every other when it comes to supporting human equality. Materialism has a hold on our world right now. Humans are understood to be merely products of random, meaningless physical processes. The only value and dignity possible is subjective, whatever someone chooses to assign. That kind of value can be granted and revoked—and it is every single day. That kind of worldview cannot support equality for every human being. Even if the biblical worldview hasn’t been followed consistently by some who claim to be Christians, it doesn’t mean it has failed; it means it hasn’t been followed consistently.

We need to look closely at worldviews to see what follows from living them consistently. Materialism justifies deeming some lives less valuable than others because there is no value other than what we subjectively assign. Not all religions place the high value on human life that Christianity does. The biblical worldview is the only foundation for valuing each and every person.

Human beings are special because they aren’t accidents of evolution, but intentional, special creations by God, who placed His own image on us. He desires our fellowship. We are so loved and valued that He offers us a relationship that’s not dependent on our living up to a standard; by mercy and grace He offers it to us freely…

The Christian gospel answers the deepest cry of our hearts—to be loved and accepted, to be valued unconditionally.—Melinda Penner⁵

Published on Anchor November 2019. Read by Jon Marc.
Music by Michael Dooley.

¹ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=389e0aLJJzU.

² Lee Strobel, God’s Outrageous Claims (Zondervan, 2009).

³ Acts 10:34.

⁴ Matthew 24:12.

⁵ https://www.str.org/blog/intrinsic-human-value-same-all-and-can-never-be-lost#.XC4n1M17lPY.

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