Our value is the foundation for offenses

Because we are significant and valuable - as bearers of God's image - when we are treated otherwise, something is taken from us. You can call it a sense of dignity, worth, respect, etc. 

Instinctively we all know this is wrong, especially when we are on the receiving end. We also know someone should restore the one who has been mistreated, i.e. someone should pay for the loss. So what are the options?

*We (the offended) can pay for it - i.e. forgive the offender - which means we incur the loss. 

*The offender can pay for it - i.e. restore what they took or damaged ... or

*Someone else can step in - a substitute - and cover the loss for the offender. 

The foundation for right and wrong.

When it comes to God, because he created and sustains us, all we are and have comes from him. Therefore, we owe it to him to live in a way that acknowledges this i.e. honors him for who He is and what he gives...yet we don't.

And because we don't we not only dishonor him but we cut ourselves off from the life and love we were designed to receive i.e. His life. Not because God rejects us, we reject him.

Without his life in us, we can never be all He designed us to be. Because we do not recognize him as our Creator, Provider, and Sustainer or seek to live for his honor - but our own - we are no longer ¹spiritually alive i.e. alive to God. We have disconnected from our Source and cut ourselves off. We are like a flashlight with the batteries removed or a sailboat where the wind has died. We still have the capacity to be all God created us to be - we have simply unplugged from the source of life that empowers us to do so.

So what are we to do? How can we live as we were created to? We can't. Without his love and life filling us - giving us a sense of meaning, purpose, and value - we can't live the way we were designed to. Only his love - the wind in our sails - can move us to live for him.

To be restored, someone else had to live that life for us - option 3 above - then offer to credit to us what they did. We also needed someone to pay our debt - restore what we damaged - for not treating others as they rightfully deserve - both God and our fellow image-bearers - i.e. treat them according to their true worth and dignity. Option 3 is the only way we can be restored back to God. We simply will not and cannot restore ourselves. The harm we do and the debt we incur is greater than our ability to fix or repay it.

And option 3 could only be carried out by somebody who lived for God's honor and glory ²perfectly because we can not without the love and life - power/wind - of God stirring in us the desire to live for Him. 

To say it another way, we can not live for God without the life and love of God moving us to do so. And the love of God is not available to us until we are restored to God. We are stuck. We need someone outside us to take care of our problem. 

Thank God, he made the way. He sent ²Christ to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. The only thing that remains for us to do is to believe He did everything necessary to restore us. It is up to us to accept his offer. Will you accept it?

For a further discussion on how the most valuable values us click here. 

For further discussions on our value click 

• Created for glory 
• Worthless, rotten sinners? 
• Does God value us? 

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¹We no longer experience our true value and dignity as intended because we are cut off from the true source of it i.e. Our Creator.

²And how did Christ live/obey perfectly? By trusting the Father's love, wisdom, and power perfectly. The very same love, wisdom, and power we too, as a child of God in Christ, have available to us through the Holy Spirit given by grace - i.e. because of what Christ did to restore us back to the Father.