What is my worth?
The world we dwell in values the skillful and the winners, the famous and profitable, the thrill of reckless abandon and flaunting glamour. The Apostle Paul reminds us that without Christ, whatever we gain in this world will be counted as loss. “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:7–8).
So if my worth is not found in all of the above, then what is my worth in? The Psalmist answers, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25–26). Our worth is found in no better demonstration than the cross where Jesus died.
- It is at the cross where the holy wrath of God confronts our unworthiness.
- It is at the cross where the gracious love of Christ declares our worth (“for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” in Luke 15:24).
Romans 5:8 (“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”) contains two wonderful Gospel truths that we must confess. First, that we are far more sinful than we are prone to believe. Second, that we are far more precious to Christ than we may have dared to realize. The reality is that the sum of our works are what Scripture calls “filthy rags.” There is simply nothing of inherent value that we offer to the equation that makes it so. It is of God’s sovereign and free grace.
My Worth Is Not In What I Own is an incredible song. Its message is that undeserving, wretched sinners deserve eternal separation from God. And even so, the Father sent His Son to fulfill the requirements of the law in His life, and paid the penalty of death we owed for our rebellion. This perplexing dichotomy is a source of awe, adoration, and hope for the Getty’s and for us!
Rooted+Relevant 