ARE we significant?
Examining our value to a heavenly Father By Greg Grotewold I was in pure panic mode. I scurried from one place to the next frantically searching for my lost treasure. I checked everywhere: my bedroom, my mom’s washer and dryer, the car, my fort, my school desk, and even the trash can in the school cafeteria. (Yes, I dug through the day’s food scraps, a disgusting but necessary task.) My precious boar’s tusk, an item that along with my knife had occupied my right front pocket for years, was gone. It was to no avail. My search was in vain, and I would never see it again. In an effort to comfort his son, my dad gave me a box full of tusks the following Christmas. However impressive the collection was, none of the new teeth I tried out worked. Not a single one fit my pocket like the old one. Even if any of them had, it just wasn’t going to be the same. I wanted mine back. The one that to my mother’s great annoyance went through the wash who knows how many times. The one that I proudly displayed to my classmates during “show and tell” at the start of the school year. The one I would study for hours while in the car on a long trip. The one that would accompany me everywhere I went.
There are very few things I recall about second grade, some 45 years ago, but this is clearly one of them. It’s a memory that surfaces periodically, the most recent being earlier last month. I had run across a document labeled “Who I am in Christ,” a wonderful outline of our identity as blood-bought believers. It is broken out into three sections – “I am Accepted,” “I am Secure,” and “I am Significant” – followed by corresponding Scripture for each. It was the last item that caused a trip down memory lane. While the analogy is a bit of a stretch, it does speak to the intricate nature of significance and pursuit. As I adored my tusk, Jesus adores His redeemed. As I relentlessly pursued my lost tusk, Jesus relentlessly pursues His lost people (and, unlike me, always finds what He pursues). But here is where the parallel breaks down. The inherent value between the two targets is different. A person is obviously worth more than some piece of enamel. But, it goes further than that. In Jesus’ case, the value of the pursued is tied to the value of the pursuer. We are significant to Jesus in part because Jesus is significant to Himself. Given His interest in His own acclaim, pursuing future worshippers fuels that pursuit. This is not the case with the
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42 May / June 2021 | Christian Living
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