What do you do when your values are attacked? I don’t know how many people could honestly answer this question. A value is something that is rooted deep down inside you. It’s something that you have paid a price to hold. It rarely comes easily and is rarely easily changed. Sometimes what we call a value is something you inherited from your parents or your culture where you grew up. Sometimes it is gained from hard life experiences. In short a ‘value’ is valuable. It isn’t cheap.
I think one reason we’ve witnessed a rapid decline in morals in this country is because we’ve witnessed an equally rapid decline in values. We have neglected to raise our children. We’ve watched them grow up, but we’ve let other people raise them. We’ve allowed our media culture to raise them. I would love to think that deep down inside most of our youth today there are some values that will carry them through life. When I examine our culture, I can’t honestly say that is true. What happened?
We lost our footing. We stopped fighting for what is right and good and true. Our souls shrank and are still shrinking. We have deliberately chosen to starve ourselves spiritually and the results are devastating. If the story of the woman at the well could be re-enacted today, there would be a whole crowd of people looking for living water and not knowing where to find it. Jesus told us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Sadly, this has happened, only when we get through loving ourselves there’s not much left to go around. We value so little.
I listen to the stories and realize that there are few people in our world who value the human body as a gift from God to be cherished and guarded until marriage. Instead we celebrate teenage sex and extra marital affairs. We have allowed our values concerning the body to become so twisted we chase what feels good, fill our bodies with what tastes good, and fantasize with our eyes and our brains whatever seems right in the moment. We are no longer valuable in our own eyes, so anything goes. We are cheap.
I look around and see very few families who value the home, much less what the home revolves around: a right relationship with God that emanates from a right relationship between a husband and a wife. It’s gone far beyond families not gathering for meals. We are at a place where families don’t gather at all. We don’t worship. We don’t teach our kids truth. We just work, sleep, and play. Why do we work? For money. We don’t work for provision. Most of our families are amply provided for. We work for money to buy more stuff; more toys. It’s no wonder our lives don’t have any value! We don’t value anything else either!
How do we recover from this? I’m tempted to argue a turnaround starts in the home, but that is not a biblical perspective. The turnaround must start with the church! If the church will lift the Bible high, not the culture, or the rights of individuals, or the opinions of the popular we will begin to see the pendulum swing. If the church will value TRUTH more highly than anything else it offers, we will start to see change. If the church will put Jesus in His rightful place as Lord and Master, I dare say transformation will begin.
Transformation will not begin in the home. I would like to argue the loss of values began in the home. To argue something like this: somewhere along the line some great grandpa allowed his children to pass through his home with a little less value than his parents allowed for him. But I don’t think that’s true either. I believe the cheap lives we live today are a product of the church. Whew! That’s hard to say!
When our focus became more about numbers and money and attracting the influential, we cheapened ourselves. When the church cheapens truth by focusing on anything else, we pass that lesson onto the family. The family will inevitably become cheap as well.
The trend continues until today where a Facebook post can alter a person’s ‘values’ or a compelling movie can change the direction of a person’s life. We have kids educating kids on what is good and bad. This can’t be a trend we want to continue much less champion. No, a movement for truth can’t start in the home. Sadly, because of the church many homes are just as confused as the children they produce. The movement must start in the church and move to the homes. Then we will start to see a change in our kids. But not until then.
Those of you who have been rescued by King Jesus are valuable. It’s as simple and profound as that. He saw the image of His Dad in you and chose to offer His life so that it would be possible for you to gain value, not lose it. No matter how valuable you feel, these are the facts. Will you choose to believe that? Then will you choose to act on it? Make a simple declaration. Something like this “I choose to value what God values. I choose to find out what God values! I choose to reconstruct my life around these values.” There could literally be no end to a movement that was built on the truth of Christ. Will you walk with me on that road?