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ABATE of Florida Inc SOUTHWEST CHAPTER
36
Chapter Chaplain Tom
Dear Fellow ABATE Members,
What are YOU Worth?
Last weekend, we actually had time to view a movie on the television. Most
people like action-adventure films and we are no exception. However, in this
fictional story, we became somewhat sensitized at the mounting body count the
so-called hero was accumulating by beating and shooting people. Some of the
shooting and killing made no sense, as it seemed he was doing it to prove some
superiority over “lesser” human beings. The next film, which we turned off within
a few minutes of the beginning, was going in the same direction. So, we checked
the guide for the rest of the evening, and the channel we tuned into, had the
same genre in a 24 hour marathon.
In our ministry with bikers and those we encounter at the hospitals, so many
people express what they feel as their worthlessness because they have lost
their jobs, lost their spouses and or family members, been jailed, lost control of
their finances, or have become handicapped in some way. With the way the
world views us, the way we have been brought up, and the values of today’s
society it may seem only natural to have those feelings. You are not alone. We
can feel some of your pain.
However, both of what has been described above, as feeling that other people
and ourselves have little or no worth is an absolute lie of the devil. Many of us
have bought into that lie.
Most people feel that if something is to have worth, it must be purchased, it must
have a price, or it must be worked for.
Isaiah tells us in part how we were bought and paid for by someone else. Isaiah
53:4-6 (Amplified Bible): Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses,
weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment],
yet we [ignorantly] considered Him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God [as if
with leprosy].
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for
our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being
for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and
made whole. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to
his own way; and the Lord has made to light upon Him the guilt and iniquity of us
all.
John 3:16 (Amplified Bible) says:
For God so greatly loved and dearly
prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so
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