Sunday, March 9, 2014

When God Shops The ReStore

Can you stand another post about that coffee table? I hope so because you're going to get it. This one isn't so much about the craftiness of the thing. It's about the treasure I picked up along the way.



A few weeks ago, I mentioned that we were studying this verse in my Bible study class.

Be devoted to one another in genuine love. 
Give preference to one another in honor. 
~Romans 12:10


I mentioned in that post that there was a nugget about that word honor,  but that would have to be a post for another day. Well, today's the day.  

Honor, after all, tends to be one of those squishy words. We all use it, and we all pretty much think we understand what it means. If we're asked to give a concrete definition of it, though, words kind of fail us. They fail me anyway. Honor is something that you give. It's something that you show, and it's something that you feel, but how exactly would I define it without using the word honor?

See what I mean? Squishy.

Fortunately for the Romans, Paul's word wasn't in the least bit squishy. When they read the words give preference to one another in honor,  they knew exactly what he meant. That's because Paul used a very specific Greek word here.  This one:

 τιμή  (timē) :  Value; the value by which a price is fixed or the price itself.

Funny that not a single translation puts it that way. Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to understand? To honor someone is to value them. It's to place a price on them based on what we believe them to be worth.

We get that. We live in a commercial world, after all. We know all about values and pricing. Just as the world places a  value on its stuff, believers are to place a value on one another.

We're just not supposed to do it by the world's standards.  The world places its value on the superficial and temporal.  You know... kind of like the way that old coffee table was priced at the ReStore.

Told you I was getting around to this...

The world looks at the surface damage and broken pieces and says,

Meh... 20 bucks.


But God is in the restoration business.


I have it on good Authority that He loves the hand sander even more than I do.
 His power tools have real power, too.  And those broken pieces?  
They're His specialty.

I don't know how you feel about that, but this old diamond in the rough finds that pretty comforting.

And that's not even the good part yet.
It gets better. 

Folks, if all we're thinking about is our makeover value, we're still stuck in the standards of the world. God's value doesn't really have anything to do with the makeover at all. It has everything to do with the price  He was willing to pay, surface damage, broken pieces and all.

I thought my ladies needed to remember that 
so I made some  price tags to stick on them.


Lest they ever forget how valuable they are to God.    


And in so doing, forget to value one another as well.

*****
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