I am working on a ransom note and this is as far as I have got:
‘Dear Eastern Baptist Association,
I have your directories and if you want to see them again you need to …’
How should I end the note? What should I ask for before I release of the directories?
I guess the real question is, what are they worth?
The directories contain the contact details of Baptist Union churches in the East of England. Their contents have value to the people who will be receiving them and there will also be a cost to the EBA to replace them, so perhaps I could get a good ransom?
On the other hand, directories have already been sent out to churches and the box full that I have are the left over ones. All the people who really need one have a copy already and so these directories will only have value as they need to be distributed during the year.
The real question for all of us is what are we worth?
You could say that worth is determined by how much money we have or how talented or famous that we are.
I guess one way of determining our worth might be to ask, ‘if I was kidnapped, would anyone be willing to pay a ransom for me?’
Jesus said about himself:
‘For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10.45).
Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for our sins. The ransom price for the people of the world was his death and he thought that was a price was worth paying.
I don’t know how you feel as you read this, but the truth is that you have real worth.
You are loved by a God who made you in his likeness and God so wants to know us that he became human and he died on a cross to win us back to himself.
We are worth so much to God, but what is he worth to us?
Do we want to know him?
Do we love him?
What will we sacrifice as we follow him?
I think I’m going to give up on my ransom note for the EBA directories, instead I will just hand them in on Saturday like I am supposed to.
I’ll leave you with this profound thought, you are worth so much, definitely more than a box of EBA directories!
Honest about my faith 