What's on Your Price Tag?

Imagine if a giant price tag was to be hung around your neck or your sleeve, as though you were an item on sale. On the price tag would be a barcode (no eschatological reference here, kids!), and next to "Item name" would be your name. What would be written next to the dollar sign? In other words, what would your price be?

And so what is your price? Your price is what and how you measure yourself. It is the thing that if it is taken away from you, then you would feel that you are worth nothing. It is your worth as you see it.

Why is our price so important? It is important because to a huge extent in determines at least two things. First of all, it affects the way we treat ourselves. We tend to treat a car worth tens of thousands of dollars more than we treat, say, a newspaper worth one dollar. Similarly, if we see ourselves as cheap, then we accordingly treat ourselves cheaply. A low sense of self-esteem undoubtedly has a huge influence on the self-abusing behavior of so many people. Conversely, people who see themselves as being worth more than everybody else would selfishly treat themselves as though they were the most important people on earth.

Secondly, the price we put on our own price tags determines the way we treat other people, and even God. If we put our price lower than that of everybody else, we would begin to feel inadequate, as I often do. And while that often means we put everybody else first, that also means that we do not give ourselves the respect that we are intended to give to ourselves. The opposite is also true. Again, if we put our price higher then everybody else's, we are much more likely to adopt a selfish, "looking after number one" attitude. This also applies to the way we treat God.

And what is our true price? How do we measure our true price? People write many different kinds of things next on the dollar sign on their price tags.

Some of measure our price according to what we possess. Many of us 'invest' our self esteem in how much money or what kind of cars we have.We also measure other people's worth based on the same measure. When the popular media says that so-and-so is worth so many billion dollars, it means that the person owns that much money. Even those of us who are far from being billionaires often follow the same behavioral pattern. Some of us feel that we are special because of who we date or who we know.

Others measure our price from what we can do or what we have achieved. Some of us feel self-confident because of the myriad of titles trailing our names on our business cards. Some of us feel we are somebody because of our ability to speak, write, sing, do business or whatever quite well.

But we all know that what we have and what we can do can pass away. People with money go broke. The people we know can abandon us. Our tremendous abilities and skills may fade away with age or disabilities, often at the blink of an eye. And we all know that in a profound way the prospect of our unavoidable deaths often dwarfs what we have or what we can do simply with the simple question of 'what will all this mean after I die?'

What, then, should be our true price? Based on what measure should we value our price? What should we write next to the dollar sign on our price tags? I think the only one truly qualified to write a number on our price tags is the one who made us. An item's base price is ultimately set by its manufacturer, and the same is true for us: God is the only truly credible author of our price.

An item's price is also revealed in one situation: when it is being purchased. In his first letter to the Corinthian (6:20) church, Paul says God has paid our price. In one translation, he says that God paid the full price for us; he did not buy us back at a bargain or a discount price! And what is this full price that he paid for us? It is none other than the blood of Jesus Christ. That is how much we are worth in the sight of our maker. To measure ourselves with any other standard different from that is to undervalue ourselves, even if that standard is worth all the money in the world.

But it is also important for us to remember that God places that priceless worth on our pricetags not because of who we are, what we can do or what we have intrinsically. We cannot again claim that the price he wrote on our price tags is because of what we have, who we are or what we do. He wrote that price there simply because he wanted to; because he loves us. So on the one hand, we are worth nothing intrinsically, but on the other hand, because God says we are worth everything, we are worth everything we could ever possibly be on our own. It is only with this right perspective of our self worth, with the right price written on our price tag, that we can relate with ourselves, with others and with God the way we should.