How much is it worth to you? I was asked that question one time by a dear friend when I tried to buy his truck. He knew what it was worth, and I was hoping to get a good deal on it. His response caught me off guard, because I have never heard that asked of the buyer in a negotiation. I know that Bobby was trying to get a fair price out of the truck, and he did (from someone else).
What a valuable question to ask ourselves in life. What is it worth to you? Far too often I think we are not asking that question enough. In today’s world we have everything at our fingertips. Satisfaction, or at least a small pretense of it, is always a click away. Most things aren’t worth much anymore, because it’s all disposable and we can always just buy more, right? We are so consumeristic that this mentality has bled into areas of our lives that it never should have. What about friends? Most people have hundreds of friends online. We usually have several real and honest friends beyond Facebook that we actually care about. But what happens when we get into a serious argument with them? I have seen first hand numerous times, and even felt this way myself, that it’s their loss and I will just find new friends. We treat people like commodities and are willing to just replace them if need be! A great question to ask here, is what are they worth to you? Are your relationships worth anything? Is there any substance to them? Or are you willing to just find new friends if you don’t like the ones you have? I hope that this concept is somewhat shocking to you. If it isn’t…… I’m talking to you. Stay with me, it gets worse. Not only do we treat our stuff rather flippantly, not only do we treat our relationships without much care, but we treat our religion the same way. I recently heard a person say they were shopping around for a church. I had to bite my tongue. This angered me. When we don’t like a church, we just walk away and look for another. In Gallia County alone there are hundreds of churches. Hundreds. I haven’t done the official research, but I will bet money that a significant portion of them exist because of a split. Because someone or a few people got upset, left, and started their own church. Is this really what the kingdom of God looks like in the Bible Belt? In rural America? Groups of people that are supposed to be unified under the greatest cause that transcends every other identifiable trait of a person giving up because they got into a disagreement and running off? If this isn’t clear to you, let me illustrate it. When I was a kid I played a lot of ball at recess. One boy always brought the football, I’ve long forgotten his name. Everyday we would split off into teams and play touch football. When he was on the losing team, he would get mad, take his ball, and go somewhere else on the playground. I don’t want to oversimplify things here, but that is what happens. The people of God, who are unified under the forgiveness of sins by a just and mighty God refuse to forgive each other! Do you see the irony? Do you see what’s wrong with the picture??? In my opinion, this all results from one single issue. Jesus just isn’t that important to us. You can give all the lip-service you want, you can put on the good show, but when your actions fly in the face of who founded the church and how he founded it, don’t tell me he means the world to you. You just hurt the very thing he gave his life for. So again I ask, what is it worth, to you? What will you do for the church? What will you pay to be a part of the body of Christ, to know true fellowship, a community of love that surpasses all others? Is it worth taking up your cross? |
Pastor MorganMorgan has been writing since middle school and worked for a year writing professionally as a news journalist for the Daily Tribune in Gallipolis. This blog is a chance for him to express his love for the Lord and all church related things through writing. Archives
December 2019
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