Insights & Encouragement

In Junior High and High School we begin asking ourselves the lifelong question, “What is my net worth, as a human?” We continue to ask ourselves this question and the only difference between a middle-aged person and a high schooler is that we picked something many years ago to hang our worth on. Now we’re either trying to convince ourselves that we’ve done well enough and we have value or we see that area fading and crumbling and we begin to feel worthless.

We’ve all been at a BBQ or a party, super hungry and surrounded by other starving people. Our eyes settle on the one thing that we really want to eat. It’s sitting there in the open, with no protection from these greedy people. We ask ourselves, “Is there enough for me?” Will there be any tender, juicy, smoky brisket left on the plate by the time it comes around to me? Or will it be gone?

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.

Mark 10:45 is a very simple verse but look for the two backward statements Jesus makes. “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Today, I want you to remember that you and I, and all humanity after Adam and Eve, were born into captivity – to sin and spiritual death. All of us