Knowing Your Value

While teaching in the Grace Walk Conference yesterday, Grace Walk Canada's National Director told a great story that I'd like to pass along in this blog.

Mike said that he was speaking in church one day when a man in the congregation noticed that Mike didn't have a watch. (Wonder what made him notice that??:) Anyway, after the service the man came to him and in a stammering sort of way said, "The Lord told me to give you this watch." He took the watch off his own arm and handed it to Mike. After being assured by the man that he did indeed want him to have it, Mike accepted the watch and expressed a sincere, but casual thanks to the man.

Mike began to wear the watch all the time - when he was at home relaxing, when he was working outside in the garden, when he was doing hard and dirty work. It was his only watch and he wore it continually.

One day the battery on the watch died. Mike stopped by a Kiosk at the mall to have the battery changed. "You'll need to take this watch to the jewelry store to have the battery replaced," the man told him. So off to the jewelry store he went. As the jeweler was opening the back of the watch, Mike said, "I need a new band for the watch too. I'd like to buy a cheap band while I'm here."

The man looked up at him with a puzzled look on his face. "A cheap band?" the jeweler asked? "Yes," Mike said. Then he began to explain to the jeweler how a man at church had given him the watch. Mike said the jeweler acted odd and looked as if he knew there was something Mike didn't know. "Is it a good watch?" Mike asked him. "Oh, yeah," the jewler said. "Do you know what it's worth?" Mike asked. "This watch is worth at least twenty five hundred dollars." "Two thousand five hundred dollars!" Mike exclaimed in shock.

"I didn't know the value of what I had," he said, "but from that day onward I have taken great care of this watch - because now I know its value!"

When we don't know our value in Christ, it affects how we live. It causes us to think little about the negative effects that fleshly behavior has on us. We don't mind the dirt if we think we're not worth much anyway. But once we have come to understand the value our God has placed on us, we want to "take care" in the things we do because we now realize that we "have been bought with a price" and that we have great value.

The workmanship of an expensive watch is something to admire, but you "are His (God's) workmanship created in Christ Jesus!" So let's act like the valuable work of our Creator that we in fact are!

(Thanks for the story, Mike, and for reminding us of our value. I wish you could all know Michael Zenker. He is a gift from God to me, to Grace Walk Ministries, and to his country. Check out our Canadian ministry at www.gracewalkcanada.org)