I am valuable!

TODAY: I am Valuable

Matthew 6:25-26 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they?"

"Oh look! There's a yard sale sign. Pull over quick!"

My husband tells me the car won't stop at yard sales, but when I'm driving - it does. LOL!

I'm not sure why I enjoy pawing through other people's cast offs, except that maybe I'm hoping to find just the right "treasure" - that one thing I really need and can't live without at a real bargain price.

Over the years I have found some neat treasures too - all kinds of bargain children's clothes to help clothe my 7 grand kids; toys to keep at my house for when they come to visit; furniture to overhaul so I can change my home decor, kitchen gadgets and so on. These things were useless items to their owners, but now occupy places of honor in my home.

At least they do until I need to clean house or pack up the moving van! Then they go out the door into my own yard sale and bring in a few extra, much-needed dollars to purchase something else.

The point is, the things others think of as expendable trash have become useful and enjoyable to me. Sometimes they need a little TLC, but they are treasures nevertheless.

Think for a moment of where you were before Christ found you. What kind of crisis were you going through at the time? What hardships or trials drew you to Him? Did you feel like a heap of trash - with no value to anyone?

According to one Christian psychologist, 99% of people who seek Christ are in a crisis situation at the time they call out to Him. Many feel worthless and hopeless. Only 1 % of Christians can actually say they "grew" into the family of God. That's a staggering statistic!

God saw us among the enemy's trash and bought us back, took us home, and put us to use in His Kingdom. Yay! He fixes us up, repairs the broken parts of our lives and loves us because He sees value in us - He sees what we CAN be.

True, even after He works on us we may bear scars of sin or of our poor choices down here on this earth, but He finds ways to bring beauty and wonderful things from those scars. They become our personal experience evidence of Christ's love and care in our lives. As we share those experiences with the hurting around us, they too allow Him to rescue them from the "trash." What a beautiful trash to treasure story!

As one Christian bumper sticker put it:

"I know I'm somebody 'cause God don't make no junk!"
Our value isn't determined by our perfection, but rather by His grace.

Thank You Lord!

Don't be afraid to share your story just because of your scars or imperfections. The hurting around us need to see those things to know He can minister to them too, right now, right where they're at. Just as He still bears the scars from the cross, He values the scars that remain from our hurts and mistakes. He redeems them by using them to touch the lives of others. We are VALUABLE to Him.