The Price Tag

The other day I found myself staring at a lamp that cost $327. No, not an antique lamp. Not a lamp that had belonged to some famous actor or secretly granted wishes like in Aladdin. Just...a lamp. Honestly, an ugly lamp, in my opinion.

I did what any financially responsible adult does when confronted with something wildly overpriced: I picked it up, turned it over, and looked underneath it as if I was going to discover the reason for its existence.

Nothing…It was just a lamp.

Someone, somewhere, decided this lamp was worth $327. And whether I agreed with that assessment or not didn’t actually matter. Its value wasn’t determined by my opinion. It was determined by what someone was willing to pay for it.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that’s how value works everywhere. What determines the value of something isn’t what the object thinks of itself, what other people think of it, or even what it’s listed for. Its value is determined by what the purchaser is willing to pay.

It’s strange how easily we understand that principle everywhere except when it comes to ourselves.

Instead, we become our own appraisers. We assign ourselves value based on our productivity that week, whether we got the promotion, whether people texted us back, whether we had a quiet time every morning, whether we kept our temper, whether our kids behaved in Target (which is an impressive accomplishment), whether our ministry is growing, or whether we finally figured out how to fold a fitted sheet. (Okay, maybe no one has figured that one out. If you have, please text me.)

Without even realizing it, we spend our lives constantly updating our own price tag. A good day means we’re worth a little more. A bad day means we’ve been marked down. We succeed, so we feel valuable. We fail, so we quietly wonder if we’re still enough.

It’s exhausting!

And it’s completely contrary to the gospel.

Paul reminds us,

“You were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20).

Not, “You will become valuable if...” Not, “Your worth increases as your sanctification progresses.”

You were bought…Past tense…Finished.

If you’ve ever sold something online, you know the asking price doesn’t actually determine the value. You can list your old couch for $800 because you believe it’s “gently loved,” but if the highest offer you receive is someone asking if you’ll trade it for a toaster and half a tank of gas, reality has officially entered the chat. (Thank you, Facebook Marketplace, for keeping us humble.)

The true value isn’t what you hoped someone would pay. It’s what someone actually paid.

So why don’t we apply that same principle to ourselves?

What did our Purchaser pay?

Peter answers that question beautifully:

“For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” (1 Peter 1:18-19)

Sometimes we’ve heard that idea so many times that it no longer stops us in our tracks. But it should. The Creator of the universe looked at humanity—not at our potential, not at the cleaned-up version of us we’d eventually become, but at us in our sin, our pride, our insecurity, our shame, and our brokenness—and willingly gave His Son.

If that doesn’t redefine value, nothing will.

Yet I think many of us spend our lives behaving as though the cross was only enough to forgive our sins, not enough to settle our worth. We know Jesus died for us, but we still wake up every morning trying to prove we’re valuable. We treat our accomplishments like evidence in a courtroom, hoping they’ll strengthen our case before God. We quietly believe a productive week makes us a little more lovable, while a week filled with failure somehow diminishes us. Even as Christians, we slip back into believing our value is something to be earned instead of something that has already been declared.

The irony is that we would never apply this logic to anything else. If someone purchased that lamp for $327, I wouldn’t walk up to the cashier afterward and argue that it was really only worth $25 because I personally thought it was ugly. My opinion doesn’t change what was paid.

In the same way, your feelings don’t have the authority to rewrite what God has already declared about you. You may not feel valuable today. You may feel ashamed, overlooked, forgotten, or painfully aware of your shortcomings. Those feelings are real, but they are not the final authority on your worth. The cross is.

Romans 5:8 says,

“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Every time I slow down long enough to really think about that verse, I’m amazed all over again. Jesus didn’t wait for the future version of me who finally had her life together. He wasn’t waiting for me to become disciplined enough, spiritually mature enough, or faithful enough. He knew every failure I would ever have, every insecurity I would carry, every time I would doubt Him, and He still considered me worth dying for. That means His payment wasn’t made because I was impressive. It was made because His love is.

I wonder how differently we would live if we actually believed that. How much striving would quietly disappear? How much comparison would lose its grip? How many decisions would be made from freedom instead of fear? When you know your value has already been settled, you stop living as though every success adds to it and every failure subtracts from it. Obedience stops becoming an attempt to earn God’s affection and instead becomes a response to the affection you’ve already received.

Perhaps that’s what Paul was reminding us of when he wrote, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). We often read those verses simply as a call to holiness, and they certainly are. But before they tell us how to live, they remind us why we can. We don’t pursue Christ because we’re trying to become valuable. We pursue Him because He has already declared that we are. The cross forever settled the question of our worth, and every step of obedience becomes a response to grace instead of another attempt to earn it.

So maybe today the invitation is simply to stop arguing with the price tag. Stop allowing your performance, your past, your mistakes, or even your own thoughts to speak more loudly than the cross. The One who knows you most completely also loves you most completely, and He considered you worth the highest price heaven could pay - Live like someone who believes that’s true.

bytaylormcgee