Worth

Worth
价值
“All have turned away, they have together become worthless…” Ro 3:12

Our intrinsic value and external worth as people are entirely different things. We should learn to tell the difference so that we will not waste our time seeking things that have no real value.

We can lower our standard of living according to the income that we generate. If we can do this, we will be pleasantly surprised to find out how little we really need to support ourselves. But we will feel that we are poverty-stricken if we live beyond our means and start to feel self-pity. There are quite a few poor people in this world who actually feel rich, but there are more relatively rich people who feel extremely poor. Being rich and poor may have a lot less to do with the amount of money that we earn than we think. It is a state of mind that can be altered by a change in our attitude.

Knowing the difference between the intrinsic and the external worth of things is a good start.

Things that last longer are more valuable that the items that don’t last at all, and the things that last beyond time surely are more valuable that the things that perish with time. We may spend our whole life time earning money, but are more than willing to give it all away to buy more time on earth when we are on our deathbed. We may become a workaholic to give our children a handsome living, but will be happy to give it all up if we are in danger of losing our children. This only goes to show that we should value eternal things over temporal things, and treasure people more than we treasure material things.

God over people, people over things, and eternity over time are the three most crucial principles that govern our lives. Our lives will become chaotic and miserable if we ignore any of these.

My uncle is the richest person in our extended family, but he has gone through one divorce and is dealing with a prodigal son who causes him a lot of pain through his wild living. Under such circumstances, I don’t think the wealth that my dad’s youngest brother possesses has as much attraction to him now as it did when he was making it and he may be willing to give some of his wealth up in exchange for something that money cannot buy.

We become worthless by seeking worthless things, for we are defined by the things that we hotly pursue.

Wealth can be generated to do things of worth, obviously. The monthly stipend that I have been drawing from the church is donated by hard-working people, and more than once I was the beneficiary of other people’s generosity. So the wealth that we have earned can either become valuable or valueless by the way we spend it, and its worth will either increase or decrease by the way we invest it.

May we never turn away from God and become worthless by pursuing things that have no eternal worth.