How could you regard yourself as worthless when I set such value upon you? Lift your head, straighten your shoulders, let hope brighten your eyes, you are known and beloved and your life has meaning and purpose. You have been called and have chosen to follow, so there is work to do and rest to enjoy and a reward and inheritance awaiting you.
The photo booth is a device into which you insert cash. Next you slip behind a mysterious curtain and face a complicated list of instructions. Soon you are twiddling a stool up and down. The stool is always either too high or too low, but you wonder whether other customers are being kept waiting, and who may be in a hurry. So breathless and uneasy, you perch half on and half off the stool. Then you are told to take off your glasses. This makes it difficult to read the instructions. Next, you present your face with chin jutting forward while you hunt for a button to press, at the same time staring at a rectangle in the middle of which is a lens that looks like a gun barrel pointing at you. The machine takes the photo just at the moment you are not ready for it. Finally you get a gratuitous insult by way of reward, you stare at the picture in horror.
Clutching my passport photograph I arrive at the Post Office counter where I am warned that it is quite likely that I will need to take the photo again. Apparently the authorities are very strict about size. My fate hinges upon the precise length of the hairs of my beard.
In the event I escape so to speak by a hairs breadth! I have my new passport but you are not allowed to peek at the photo! Passport photos may encourage humility, but we need to be secure about our identity in Christ Jesus.
Meditating on Exodus 19:4-6
4 “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. 5 Now if you obey Me fully and keep My covenant, then out of all nations you will be My treasured possession. Although the whole earth is Mine, 6 you will be for Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
We felt the Lord was saying:
All your days I have carried you through storms and tempests, through trials and troubles, through sunshine and shadow and I have brought you to be with Me for ever.
You are to be My treasured possession and a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
I set My banner of love over you and declare you to be Mine. You are My special people, set aside to be holy and to declare My praises in the earth.
You are to be priests forever, first to minister to Me, and then to one another and also to those who are outside of My kingdom. You are to pronounce blessings in My Name, to relieve the oppressed, to open blind eyes and deaf ears, to heal those that are sick and to hold forth the word of life.
You Are Invaluable
You are indeed saints, kings, priests, treasures. This is truly so, and yet you have nothing whatever to boast of. It is all of My goodness and grace. You have a glorious destiny, and your lives count in a special way. The more you learn to live in the heavenly places by faith, the more useful you will be to your fellow men, and to My kingdom on earth. For the world has need of saints and overcomers. Be sure that My kingdom is increasing and has been increasing. The great harvest of souls never ceases. Dare to believe that you are indeed a treasured possession.
I value each of My children at the price of My Son’s blood. How could you regard yourself as worthless when I set such value upon you. Lift your head, straighten your shoulders, let hope brighten your eyes, you are known and beloved and your life has meaning and purpose. You have been called and have chosen to follow, so there is work to do and rest to enjoy and a reward and inheritance awaiting you.
