Last week was a busy week for me. I was pressurized to finish my job assignments in order to meet a deadline. So, I was grouchy sometimes to my family. The good thing is I’ve got a chance to attend my colleague’s retirement gathering in one night. It was a small gathering and several of us enjoyed dinner together. We talked about a lot of subjects, ranging from families, new house purchasing, sports, current politics and new insurance system, etc.

My retired colleague told us their recent experience in purchasing a foreclosure house, which they planned to use as their retirement home. He mentioned that the house was badly damaged but is situated in a good location. Their plan was to tear it down and then build a small new house on it. With a considerable confidence after did his homework, my colleague went to bid the house. In the end, he was surprised and lost the bid. Apparently the highest bidder, who had paid a substantially higher than original sticker price, was more eager to get the house than him. This lets me think of our recent small group topical studies in “Christian Values”.

In essence, a “value” has two aspects of it. One is “price” and the other is “worth”.  In our daily life, we make a lot of decisions based on our own value system. For example, when we don’t think the thing is worthy of its price, we wouldn’t want to buy it. On the other hand, when the price is right, we may over-purchase something that we don’t need. I myself sometimes would fall into the price is right trap and as a result, my wife would complain that our garage is stuffed with rarely used tools 🙂

Consequently, a personal value system can be very subjective and it involves personal preferences. The question is “How can we make a correct call?”  This is where “Christian Value” system comes into play. When our decision making process invokes Christian Value system, we will see thing differently – from God’s view. The Christian Value system would put something on an “eternal” scale like this: “Is the thing of my interest, measured in the eternal scale, worthy of my attention?”  If not, then I should pay “less” attention to it. Otherwise, we would again waste our time and energy in pursuing it. This is just a simple example of practicing Christian Value system. The fundamental principle of the system, however, is as our Lord Jesus instructed: We need to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33a). When we follow this instruction, we would put our value system always in the “right eternal scale”.

My dear brothers and sisters, let me ask you a question here, “Do you use Christian Value system to make your decision everyday?”  Let me offer a prayer below:

“Lord, please open my eye to see what you see, to do what you want me to do. Make me a truthful follower to your will. Amen.”

Disclaimer: The sharing is pure from my personal view; therefore, please don’t take it to be absolute. Thanks.