What Are We Really Worth? - 11/12/00 04:07 AM
I am posting something a bit longer than usual to start this topic; but I think it will really be "worthwhile." 
(get it?)
What Are We Really Worth?
Life can be hard at times. Loss of employment, the death of someone close, emotional or physical abuse, failing health, divorce, etc. Sooner or later, tragedy or trouble of some kind knocks at every door. All of us in the Battler family share atleast one thing in common - we all have difficult experiences. There are dark chapters in every life.
To add icing to the cake, it seems like the world is falling apart, or going nuts. There are all kinds of economic and social upheavals happening. Morals have plunged right to the bottom of the scale and certain age old perversions (homosexuality) are being elevated to a lofty and virtuous status, (even in churches), all under the guise of "human rights," or the UN's "Depopulation Agenda."
I've had to wonder at times: "What is a human being really worth these days?" If you look to Rwanda, Somalia, or Bosnia, or many other places, it is not a nice answer. It is revolting. The answer is just about as shocking when you look at the people living on the streets, and out of garbage cans, right here in downtown Calgary. The social value of a person is depreciating rapidly.
The literal commercial value of a person is also very disappointing too.
From my nursing and biology studies, I learned that our body contains about 45 litres of water, enough fat to make about 7 bars of soap, enough carbon to make around six pencils, sufficient phosphorous to make approximately 2000 matches, enough iron for one nail, enough calcium to whitewash and disinfect a chicken coop, and sufficient sulphur to kill the fleas on a dog. Before the atomic era arrived, chemists valued all of this material listed, at about $32.00 U.S. Now, things have really changed. Scientists say that the total electrical energy in the hydrogen atoms of the average human body could supply all the electricity needs of a large, industrialized country for almost one week. (11 million kilowatt hrs./lb.). This means that the average person has a nuclear energy worth $85 billion dollars U.S.
We all have times where we suffer from the low, or distorted value that we or society impose on one another, or that we impose on ourselves. These days, we are often tempted to think that we are worth nothing. Sixty - five to seventy - five percent of North Americans suffer from low self esteem. People have lost a sense of their true, personal worth. But, what is our real value?
In times like these, we need answers. When we were children, we turned instinctively to Mom, Dad, Granny, or someone else in the family, for understanding and security. But now, distance and life circumstances prevent us from seeking out that security. Now that we're older, we tend to think that we are supposed to stand on our own. But our questions have become harder, our trials more deeply felt. If we needed answers and comfort as children; then we need them even more as adults.
During my nursing career, I received an urgent call around midnight to go to the bedside of a dying man who needed a private nurse. It took him about three hours to die. As I watched the life current slowly ebb out of this man; it renewed the thought in me that life is too fragile and uncertain to struggle through it's ups and downs alone; or to erupt through life's challenges without giving the Bible a chance to make the difference in your life that it has in thousands of people around the world.
We are all children of a wise and gracious heavenly Father. He invites us to bring all of our perplexities and cares to Him: "Cast all your cares upon the Lord; for He cares for you."
(1 Pet.5:7). Don't try to impress God by bringing great, flowing apologies to Him; don't waste your time trying to appease God with all sorts of "good deeds;" and repentance. Just bring Him your "cares!" The other stuff will come later. When you bring God something, you simply pray:
"Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend." (S.C.92). Prayer enables us to "receive Him." "To them that received Him, [meaning what He did on the cross] gave He power to become the sons [and daughters] of God." (Jo 1:12).
God wants you just as you are: "Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden..." (Mat.11:28). Doesn't that give you some idea about how much you're really worth?
Do you need answers? Why not try reading the Bible and praying regularly: even if it's just 10 or 15 minutes a day? You can just do it quietly and privately in your own home - what have you really got to lose by doing so?
After all, the Bible is the best selling book of all time. And most important, you are worth even more than that $85 billion U.S.! You are worth every bit of the price paid for you at the time of purchase!
"For God so loved [each one reading this article] that He gave His only begotten Son; that whosoever [of the Battlers] shall believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." (Jo.3:16).
My wife Linda told me an interesting story recently, that really brought home the fact that God and His love can conquer whatever we may face.
This story will shed more light on how much we are really worth in God's eyes, and now when I read the verse in the Bible that says, "God is love," (1 Jo.4:8), and "Love never fails," (1 Cor.13:8), I have a surer, and brighter picture in my mind of God, and the value that He places upon my life.
The story starts in the heat of the Second World War. Hitler was wreaking his death machine onto the people of Poland. My wife’s (Linda's), Mom, with her parents, and four brothers and sisters, cowered in fear, in their little village home of poverty. Linda's Mom was about 12 years old at the time. Her Dad was swayed by Hitler's mentality, after the Germans came in and cruelly butchered eighty Polish men in front of their families. Later, when a law was passed that no one who was Polish was allowed to buy food from the regular sources - the black market - Linda's Grandfather actually turned in a man to the German authorities just for buying a bag of flour for his wife and five little children. This poor man had to go to a miserable work camp, where no one usually returned from.
After spending six years there for buying that flour to feed his family, the tables had turned. The Germans were being routed from Poland. The Polish people were returning to anyone who was German, double what they got. Now the Germans were being killed and tortured. Now the Germans were starving. When this man came back to the little village, and saw how hungry the family of the man that had turned him in was, he repaid them with kindness by giving them what little food he could muster up. Linda's Grandfather was not yet home from the battle front and POW camp.
About this same time, the Polish authorities decided to gather up eighty of the German women from this little village. They were taken to a central place in the town, and forced at gunpoint to start digging a mass grave, for themselves, with nothing but their bare hands. When the soldiers came and took Linda's Grandmother away, to join these 80 women, she was very brave and tried to encourage her screaming little ones by saying: "I will see you again." While these poor ladies were still digging, this man who had spent the six years in a death camp, came to Linda's Grandma's 5 children - which included Linda's Mom, and again, he repaid them with kindness. He gave them a little more food, and spoke what must have been the strangest words one could ever hear at such a time such as this: "Don't worry...I think the Lord is going to help you...you will see your Mom again...I'm sure of it."
About one thirty in the morning, Linda's Grandma arrived exhausted and blackened from head to toe, at the home of her precious little ones. A miraculous intervention by a Catholic priest in the town, whom everyone really looked up to, had saved these eighty women. The priest had pleaded with them to "Love your enemies."
Jesus once said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect," (Mat.5:48), and in Luke 6:37 He explained it in another way: "Be ye therefore merciful, even as your Father is merciful." Jesus, apparently has equated perfection, with being merciful!
"It is not what you have or what you do,
which directly affects your worth:
It's what you are inside that's true...
that reveals the salt of the earth."
-D. Battler
You may not be like those women, digging your own grave, but you are like them, in the sense that to all appearances, things will sometimes look, rather final, and hopeless. You can be like Linda's Grandmother in the midst of your uncertainties, and echo the words of the Psalmist who said, "I love the Lord, because He hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because He hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live."
(Ps.116:1 - 2).
When someone dies, people usually ask: "How much money and property did they leave behind?" When God's angels lean over the dying person, they only ask : "how has this person lived, and why?" They echo God's thoughts, that assure us, our future can be our friend, because God has a hatred of sin that is as strong as death but He has a love for the sinner that is stronger than death through the gift of His very own precious Child.
"For the wages of sin is death [which Jesus has received] but the gift of God is eternal life [which we are to receive] through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Rom.6:23). That's how much we're really worth! Nothing you do or don't do can change that. Romans 8:38-39 tells us that [nothing can] "separate us from the love of God." "He came to draw all people unto Himself." (DA 480). Won't you answer His call today? Read your Bible and start to pray. What have you got to lose? After all, aren't you worth it?
In A Picture
Sometimes I wonder where God's love went;
when misfortune and folly collect in piles...
Sometimes I really think I'm hell - bent,
till I get a lift through one of my trials...
The wind blows cool and gentle in my hair:
I hear only one sound, have only one care.
Rain is falling gently in fine little drops,
Perking up the trees and flower tops..
.and I hear the sound, see the life it brings,
as the plants sparkle and the robin sings.
I see the rain splash and form little rivers;
I watch where it's going and feel little shivers,
throughout my body and into my heart:
Those little drops are all a part
of the way things are.
God gives me a steady hand, when I really need it most.
Giving me something to understand,
and something good to boast.
"I love the Lord because He has heard my prayers..." (Ps.116:1).
- D.Battler
"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses it's saltiness, how can [the earth] be made salty again? [The salt] is no longer good for anything..." Mat.5:13
"There are too many people praying for the mountains of difficulty to be removed, when what they really need is endurance to climb them."
We are worth every bit of the price paid for us by the Son of God. (Jo.3:16). Will you let Him into that area of your life that you have kept Him out of all these years? You are worth it..."You who were afar off, are made near by the blood of Christ." (Eph.2:13).
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"We are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets; Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief Cornerstone!" (Eph.2:20).
Your brother in Christ
David T. Battler