What is your value? What are you worth?
Some will approach that question in terms of how much money they have and the financial value of their assets. Others might think in terms of their value to their family and friends, or the contribution they make to society. And different people will have different opinions on their value—some will rate themselves highly, others will not.
As you’d expect in this magazine, we’re not thinking of financial value, or any other value as far as this world is concerned. We’re thinking of the measure of our worth that really matters—God’s valuation of us.
What is our value to God? There may be different answers to this question. On the one hand, it could be argued that we are inconsequential to the Creator of the universe: ‘All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness’ (Isaiah 40:17). Worse than that, we’re sinners: ‘For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh’ (Romans 7:18).
On the other hand, God loves us—this is a fundamental fact of the Gospel. ‘God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’ (Romans 5:8). This is a fact that might be so familiar that it almost loses its wonder. But think about it. You are so important, that God gave His Son to die for you. If you respond to what God has done, then you are of immense value to Him.
God’s People
God made a covenant with the nation of Israel, when He brought them out of their slavery in Egypt and led them towards the Promised Land.
You have declared today that the Lord is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules, and will obey his voice. And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments (Deuteronomy 26:17–18).
Israel was to be an example of godliness to all other nations, who would see their wise laws and their good way of life, and the blessings they enjoyed, and would glorify God because of it. Israel would be God’s ‘treasured possession’. That English phrase is a translation of a single Hebrew word which means something like “shut up wealth”—that is, treasure that is highly prized and kept safe. It’s also translated ‘treasure of kings’ (Ecclesiastes 2:8).
Sadly, for the most part Israel did not keep their side of the covenant. They wandered away from God and flouted His laws. Instead of a positive example to other nations, they brought God into disrepute. As one prophet lamented, ’Continually all the day my name is despised’ (Isaiah 52:5).
Throughout what was for the most part a sad and ignominious history, God did not give up on Israel. In the Old Testament’s last book, Malachi, He is still pleading with them to mend their ways. There was only a small remnant of the nation who were faithful to Him.
Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him” (Malachi 3:16–17).
Did you notice the phrase? That’s the same Hebrew word. God is gathering His treasure together. The nation for the most part failed to be God’s treasured possession, but He was picking out from them the odd jewel, here and there, who “feared Him and esteemed His name”.
God’s Temple
King David devoted a large part of his later life to preparing for the Temple of God, which his son Solomon was to build. He allotted funds from the national exchequer, and such was his enthusiasm for the project that he donated his own personal wealth as well: ‘Moreover, in addition to all that I have provided for the holy house, I have a treasure of my own of gold and silver, and because of my devotion to the house of my God I give it to the house of my God’ (1 Chronicles 29:3). That phrase ‘treasure of my own’ is the same Hebrew word, ‘treasured possession’.
David probably had no idea that he was illustrating, in a very small way, what God Himself is doing. He is picking out, from Israel and the rest of the world, individuals here and there, and He is using them for a building project. Not an actual building, but a worldwide household:
You are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit (Ephesians 2:19–22).
In this world, you may be somebody or you may be nobody. It doesn’t matter what you are. But if you are someone who “fears the Lord and esteems His name”, He will pick you out for His great purpose, and count you among His treasures.
