God of the Free

You are not for sale. 

With the commercialization of our world and all of the targeted ads that we are bombarded by every day, it may be difficult for you to believe this. After all, all you have to do these days is think about something that might make your life better, and the world will offer it to you through ads, electronic assistants, spam in your inbox, text messages...however it can get in contact with you. I recently saw something about a program where you just give AI your credit card information, and it will make purchases for you and have them shipped to your house. 

Social pressures in and from the marketplace are huge. Everything has a value attached to it, and that value is not necessarily the price tag. What you wear, what you eat, how you decorate your home, what you like, your favorite color palate, your pets, all of these things and more define who you are and you spend your whole life sometimes trying to consume the "right" things to become the person you want to be...or at least, the person you want to project to the world. 

We always feel like we're one good sale away from becoming our best selves. 

Contrast that with a God who doesn't believe you're a commodity. A God who doesn't believe you need to be bought or sold. 

Isaiah 52:3 tells us that God will never buy or sell us.  Well, specifically, it says that the exchange rate for us is "nothing." Nothing. Not a thing. He's not interested in what He can get for us; He's more interested in just having us as His own. We always say that we've been "bought" with the blood, but the truth is we've been redeemed by the Cross, and there's a very big difference there. 

God's not using you to get ahead. He's not using you for what you're worth. You're worth everything to Him, no matter what you do with your life; He already proved that by dying for you so that you might live. Nothing you can acquire will change the value of your life; nothing you lose will diminish it.

You're not worth more to God as a commodity; you're worth the most to God as a wonderful creation. Made in His image. Uniquely reflecting His glory. Whether the delivery guy knows your house by heart or you've never ordered a single thing from the marketplace. 

It's tough to find this kind of love in the world - a love that doesn't have a price tag on it. A love that's not interested in how much you cost or how much you're worth. A love that already declares you are worth it all, worth the very breath of life that He breathed into you at the start and the last breath He took in agony to bring you home. 

But such is the love of God. 

In a world that spends so much energy trying to convince you how important the marketplace is, always remember that the Artist who made you has said one thing very, very clearly: 

You are not for sale. 

Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.