We're God's designer genes

Although we're too old for chewing bubblegum and collecting TOPPS baseball cards, now and then my brother and I still mourn the loss of the cards we collected when we were little.

We fantasize that surely they'd be worth a bundle these days, but we figure mom probably pitched them during one of her cleaning sprees. Anyway, like a lot of chances and choices in life that might've made me rich, they're long gone.

Most novelists dream of writing a book that Oprah Winfrey recommends on her show. And when Michael Jordan writes his name on a piece of shoe leather, its price goes up. Shucks, Mark McGwire doesn't even have to autograph hamburgers; he just eats them on TV and Hardee's believes that sells more.

A famous endorsement ... that's you and me. No, God didn't make junk when he breathed life into us, but we became priceless when Jesus paid the fee for our redemption on Calvary's crossbeam. As part of his signature collection, we even get called by his name -- Christians -- followers of Jesus the Christ.

God came to earth to die that he might bring glory to himself, and in the gasps and groans of Golgotha he breathed value into me.

I'm a flawed piece of pottery, full of cracks and fissures. My clay often falls apart in life's fires, which are designed to refine me.

God's fires leave me unrefined; I'm just singed or seething. I was never worth dying for -- especially not by God. But God did it anyway. So now I'm valuable, precious -- and yes, even downright high-priced because I've been endorsed by THE Endorser.

I'm more precious than a piece of pigskin signed by quarterback Bart Starr and coach Vince Lombardi after the Green Bay Packers won the first Super Bowl, the Mona Lisa signed by Leonardo da Vinci, and the Declaration of Independence signed by the founding fathers (my Founding Father signed me, guaranteeing my independence from Satan). I am priceless!

But sometimes we look broken-mirror ugly to ourselves. It's hard for most of us to see ourselves through God's eyes. We don't see ourselves as priceless. Our world says we're valuable if we're pretty. It values big bank and savings accounts, sexiness and talent.

It values youth, speed, athletic ability, high intelligence, possessions, power and control. God values a good heart, kindness, decency, honesty, faithfulness, compassion, unselfishness and meekness. He also values us. And he valued us when we didn't have good hearts and even if we had no kindness, decency, honesty, faithfulness, compassion, unselfishness or meekness.

Colossians 2:13 says, "When you were spiritually dead because of your sins and because you were not free from the power of your sinful self, God made you alive with Christ, and he forgave all your sins" (NCV). He died for us and made us his gift to the world, his divine work of art, personally signed by him.

So we're important in the cosmos not because of what we do, but because of what God did for us and whose we are. We're God's designer genes.

In Job 15:14, Eliphaz asks, "What is man that he could be pure? And he who is born of a woman, that he could be righteous?" (NKJ) The last time I looked I was still sinning. I haven't quit. I still need a savior every day, as far as I can see. But the Bible says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9 NKJ).

One Sunday morning 2,000 years ago on the breakfast tables of heaven, we went from being the lost children pictured on the milk cartons to the champions on the Wheaties boxes. So forget Air Jordan; you're an Heir Jesus!

June Seabaugh is a member of Christ Church of the Heartland in Cape Girardeau.