Value. How do we cram value into the lives of the people we love? I have thought about this off and on now for years because it is one of the central aspects of life in community. Our sense of self-worth is critical to our health and place in the community we exist in, be it the community of believers, our community of friends, our work, our school, our marriage – whatever.

 

Ultimately a lasting strong sense of value cannot come from outside of us. It cannot depend upon the people around us because our community exists to affirm what is already there. The community of Christ values the Spirit of God within. It cannot value that Spirit in the other if it is absent from the other otherwise our sense of value, given by the community is based upon a lie – and surely this is not good.

 

But how are we to value the world than? There is no spirit within the world. Then we value the image of God, broken though it is, within the world around us. We value the world because God values the world. It needs to do nothing to earn this…it is already done.

 

The greatest barrier to relationship is a deep and inherent sense of worthlessness; an impoverishment of value. We are tempted to look at God and say "Why do you love me? I am worthless and my mere presence would soil you." We are tempted to say to the community "Why do you love me I offer you nothing in return?" We are tempted to say to our loved ones "I don’t understand why you love me and drag you down."

 

Ironically it is these kinds of comments that become the thin edge of the wedge between people and communities. Comments designed to gain a false sense of value simply ensure we never gain a real sense of value.

 

There is only One from whom we gain true value. When we try to speak value into the broken lives of the ones we love so we can "fix" them we can inadvertantly become the main obstacle to it. How? By injecting false value like a drug into their lives that they become addicted to. By building a sense of value based upon lies. Better to point the way through our own life lived in connection with God. This way we can accomplish the whole law. When we come to know God we learn that He loves us unconditionally. When we learn this we come to love ourselves unconditionally. This is important because if we don’t love ourselves we cannot love others and if we don’t love others we cannot fulfill the law which is: