Anyone interested ?  Tickets are at $8 for adults and $4 for students.  Click on the image for link to website with more details.

Today, Joyce and I talked about how some people struggle with low self-esteem, and how this sadly drives some of them to do things that only serve to highlight their insecurities (like behave obnoxiously, and here I can’t resist thinking about an ex-boss … yes, I’m wicked), or towards self-destructive behaviour.

How do we measure our self-worth ?  Is the yardstick how much we earn, the jobs that we hold, the distinctions in our report card, the number of friends that we have, the praise that others lavish on us, or how good we or our partners look ?

In this connection I recall a conversation at a wedding dinner earlier this year.  A friend that I had not seen in a long time related her experiences while on a mission trip in Africa (can’t remember which part).  While on a long bus journey a polite African man chatted her up.  One of the conversation topics was about marriage conventions in Asia.  As they neared the destination, he asked if her parents would accept two head of cattle for her hand in marriage.  Two head of cattle - so that’s what she was worth !  She found a way to politely turn him down.

And then there’s the latest Israel-Lebanon conflict, with Hizbollah demanding (hundreds of) prisoners in exchange for the lives of two kidnapped Israeli soldiers.  Israel swiftly responded by bombing substantial parts of Lebanon back into the 19th century.  So the lives of these two unfortunate Israeli soldiers are worth the hundreds of prisoners that are demanded by Hizbollah, or the hundreds of Lebanese lives lost in the conflict.

But how should Christians measure their worth ?  On this point I recall a wonderful passage from Isaiah (43:4), in which God affirms our importance in His eyes -

Since you are precious and honoured in my sight,
and because I love you,
I will give men in exchange for you,
and people in exchange for your life. 

He ultimately demonstrated the how much He values us by giving the life of His son, Jesus, in exchange for ours.  This then, is how Christians ought to measure their worth.  Not by wealth, possessions, influence, position, partners, cattle or prisoners, but by the life of Jesus Christ.  Not many faiths can claim a God that gave His life up for mankind.  So by this yardstick, anything else offered by the world pales in comparision.

While reflecting on recent events my mind was impressed with the following thought : that we (as Christians) serve God, under God’s appointed leaders, and not the leaders themselves however charismatic (or uncharismatic) they may be; and that we also serve God’s people, and not our personal interests however important they may be.

But I couldn’t for the life of me think of a Biblical basis for the foregoing (logical though it seemed), and then the following passage came to mind -

What, after all, is Apollos ?  And what is Paul ?  Only servants, through whom you came to believe - as the Lord has assigned to each his task.  I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.  So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.  The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labour.  For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

… So then, no more boasting about men !  All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future - all you yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.

So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God.  Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful …

1 Corinthians 3 : 5 - 4 : 2