Your worth measured by having God in your life
Job stood up and tore his robe in grief. Then he shaved his head and fell to the ground to worship. He said, “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!” Job 1:21-22
The world values material prosperity as the measure of a person’s worth. Possessing things in life can bring joy to many people in this world yet you must remember that everything in this life you possess can be taken away from you. This is what Job was expressing from the text after he lost everything valuable in his life. But in the midst of his lost, he still praised the Lord. The Scripture described Job as not blaming God after he went through the sufferings he experienced. And the word of God declared, “Job did not sin by blaming God” (1:22). What mattered to Job is his relationship with God. For Job, to have God was the most valuable he could possess in this world. When David prayed the prayer of thanksgiving, he was grateful to God not because of the material prosperity he received from Him but the richness of knowing that he has a relationship with God Who is the Source of every blessing in this world. “Wealth and honor come from you alone, for you rule over everything. Power and might are in your hand, and at your discretion people are made great and given strength” (1 Chronicles 29:12). What David and Job acknowledged about God should also be what Christians should acknowledge in their life; true riches are not found in what you possess but in Who possesses you. As a child of God, He gave you the best gift that you could have in this world. “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). Do not lose heart if you have not accumulated great sums of material wealth and think that God has not blessed you, instead agree with David and Job that to know the Giver of every good and perfect gift is far greater worth. Amassing material wealth without having a right relationship with the Giver Himself as described by Solomon was vanity. After naming all the things he accumulated in this world, he concluded; “But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:11). God is the only one that could satisfy and that could cause you to experience real joy in life. Those who find God as the Source of everything in this life and the life to come are the richest people in this world. “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?” (Matthew 16:25-26).
Blessings,
