Tag: worth

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Zero

Daily Reading

Job 1-4

Daily Thought

Zero is quite powerful. When you add zero, nothing much happens. But try multiplying! Go ahead. Multiply anything by 0, and what do you get? Zero. Zero dominates! 12 x 0 = 0; 20 x 0 = 0; 8 billion (the number of people on planet earth) x 0 = 0. We spend our entire lives adding and subtracting, but at the end, everything we have gets multiplied by zero. Zero is the death of everything. Zero is death. Does that seem disheartening? Think again. 

Look in your closet, your attic, your garage, your hope chest, your cupboards. Nothing we accumulate adds value to who we are, nor does losing anything or everything take it away. It is incredibly powerful to realize that our worth comes from nothing more and nothing less than being a child of God made in his image. And Job said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

Satan thought he could take everything away from Job and Job would curse God. “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face” (Job 1:9-11).

Take it all; I still have my God. Nothing can touch that! No one can touch that. Not a demeaning boss, nor a degrading father, nor a disloyal friend, nor the devil himself. When we delight in God we find rest, contentment, peace, significance. Nothing can rob us of that, because God is not going anywhere.

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” ~Romans 8:38-39

Daily Prayer

Father in heaven, you are the Creator of all things. I give you all glory and honor and praise. What a world you have created! Forgive me for focusing on the trivial when the majesty of your creation is forever in front of me. Oh Lord, may I be content in you.

Faith, hope, and love, these are essential. And the greatest of these is love. Out of my faith in the God of truth, out of my hope in the God who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, may I love you with all of my heart, my soul, my mind, and my might. And may I love others, and thus display my love for You to the world.

Amen

Daily Question

What would be different if you saw yourself the way God sees you?

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Beauty

Daily Reading

Ezekiel 16-17

Daily Thought

A joke: two outlaw gunfighters, Pete and Tom, brothers and bad men, were notorious in the Old West. Tom, alas, was slow on the draw and killed. Pete cautioned the preacher if he did not call Tom a saint at his burial, the preacher would be next in the grave. So, when giving the eulogy, the preacher detailed the bad life Tom had lived, but concluded, “compared to his wicked brother Pete, Tom was a saint.”

“As I live, declares the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. Samaria has not committed half your sins. You have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed” (Ezekiel 16:48, 51). According to God, Israel was Pete, Sodom and Samaria were Tom, and Israel made them look good by comparison.

God reminded Israel, you had it good! “You were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was honey, olive oil and the finest flour. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen” (Ezekiel 16:13). You were married to the King of kings–“I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God and you became mine” (Ezekiel 16:8), but Israel loved her beauty more than the one who made her beautiful–“You trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his” (Ezekiel 16:15). 

Our trouble begins when what God thinks of us is not enough and we seek the second opinion of others. Israel sought the company of creation rather than the Creator, and beauty became a whore.

Daily Prayer

My God, may You always receive the glory. In all of creation and in everything I do. Yours is the Name above all names.

What is astounding is I am not only part of Your family, but I am a co-heir with Your Son, Jesus Christ. Not only am I clothed in His righteousness, but I share His eternal treasure. Thank You, Father, because when I make You first, I discover all my dreams and desires are fulfilled. My greatest joy comes in Your glory.

Amen

Daily Question

What is God’s opinion of you? How important is that to you?

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Baseball Cards

Daily Reading

Jeremiah 51-52

Daily Thought

Boys collect baseball cards, but when we were boys, we didn’t know any better. We liked the clicking sound baseball cards made when you clothes-pinned them to the spokes on your bicycle. It didn’t matter what card; Mickey Mantle made the same noise as Yogi Berra. We did not know that a 1914 Babe Ruth would sell for $717,000, or a 1952 Mickey Mantle for $2,880,000, or a 1909 Honus Wagner for $3,120,000. 

“Every man is stupid and without knowledge;
every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols,
for his images are false,
and there is no breath in them.
They are worthless, a work of delusion.” ~Jeremiah 51:17-18

Prophets are seldom subtle. There is one God, proclaims Jeremiah, and “it is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens” (Jeremiah 51:15). It is the fool who bows before objects of wood and stone, cardboard and clay, who values things more than the Creator of everything. 

We pinned baseball cards to our wheels because we did not know people would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a 2×3” piece of cardboard. 

And we were the foolish ones?

Daily Prayer

Most Wonderful God, I worship You. The galaxies, the stars, the moon and sun, planet earth, oceans, animals, and me. You created it all, simply by Your Word. You spoke and it was, and it was good.

There are times, God, when I value things too much, when creation steals more of my attention than the Creator. Lord, may I never lose sight of You, Your glory, Your wisdom. May I always be foolish enough to disdain the wisdom and the wealth of this world, and find my full value in You.

Amen

Daily Question

How do you decide what something is worth to you?

Posted on

Zero

Daily Reading

Job 1-4

Daily Thought

Zero is quite powerful. When you add zero, nothing much happens. But try multiplying! Go ahead. Multiply anything by 0, and what do you get? Zero. Zero dominates! 12 x 0 = 0; 20 x 0 = 0; 8 billion (the number of people on planet earth) x 0 = 0. We spend our entire lives adding and subtracting, but at the end, everybody gets multiplied by zero. Does that seem disheartening? Think again. Look in your closet, your attic, your garage, your hope chest, your cupboards. Nothing we accumulate adds value to who we are. If we lose anything or everything (think Job), we are of no less worth.

Satan thought he could take everything away from Job and Job would curse God.  “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face” (Job 1:9-11).

It is incredibly powerful to realize that our worth comes from nothing more and nothing less than being a child of God made in his image. And Job said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

Take it all; I still have my God. Nothing can touch that! No one can touch that. Not a demeaning boss, nor a degrading father, nor a disloyal friend, nor the devil himself. When we delight in God we find rest, contentment, peace, significance. Nothing can rob us of that, because God is not going anywhere. Even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for you! If God is for me, who can be against me.

Daily Prayer

Father in heaven, you are the creator of all things. I give you all glory and honor and praise. What a world you have created! Forgive me for focusing on the trivial when the majesty of your creation is forever in front of me. Oh Lord, may I be content in you.

Faith, hope, and love, these are essential. And the greatest of these is love. Out of my faith in the God of truth, out of my hope in the God who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, may I love you with all of my heart, my soul, my mind, and my might. And may I love others, and thus display my love for You to the world.

Amen