You’re One In A Million

If you break down an average human body, the chemical composition has a worth of about  $4.50 in our world today. That includes everything – even your skin and bones.

Is there any reason for us to believe we are worth more than $4.50?

We live in a “throw away” society. Things break, and we throw it away. Things don’t work as they used to, and we throw it away. Unfortunately, that attitude is creeping in regarding older people and disabled people. They are no longer “productive” citizens, and so there are those who want to “throw them away.”

Belgium: Senate Approves Measure Allowing Doctors to Euthanize Children with disabilities and Adults with dementia,depression, or terminal illness.

We live in a culture in which life is cheap and becoming cheaper at an alarming rate.Life is devalued to the point that we no longer call an unborn child a baby, but a choice.

Children fall victim to murderous sexual predators.

Polly was 12 when she was abducted from her bedroom on October 1, 1993, during a slumber party by Richard Allen Davis, with promises that he would not hurt her or the other girls if she went with him quietly. He raped and murdered her.

Teens are killed for a few dollars, a few ounces of drugs, a pair of trendy shoes, or a flashy jacket.

People are killed for money, for their cars, out of revenge, or simply because they are in the way of others’ ambitions or acquisitions.

Man, 30, Shopping With Wife Killed in Carjacking at Upscale New Jersey Mall

So where is the value in human life?

Value is the price a person is willing to pay. If you were to ask an individual where they find their value it would vary. Some would say their position at work, others their financial status, some from friends, some from abilities and achievements, and the list goes on and on…These values are temporal.

However, because we are made in the image of God (Genesis 2:27) and He bought us with a high price (1 Corinthians 6:20), we have great value!

In fact, You’re one in a Million!

The guillemot is a small Arctic seabird that lives on the rocky cliffs of northern coastal regions. These birds flock together by the thousands in comparatively small areas.Because of the crowded conditions, hundreds of females lay their pear-shaped eggs side by side in a long row on a narrow ledge. Sincethe eggs all look alike, it’s incredible that a mother bird can identify those that belong to her.

Yet studies show that she knows her own eggs so well even when one is moved, she finds it and returns it to its original location. She is never confused.

The Bible tells us that the heavenly Father intimately understands each of His children. He knows their every thought and emotion, and is “acquainted with all [their] ways” (Ps. 139:3). From morning till night He gives personal attentionto all their circumstances.

Psalms 139:1-3

1 O LORD, you have examined my heart    and know everything about me.2 You know when I sit down or stand up.    You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.3 You see me when I travel    and when I rest at home.    You know everything I do.

God knows what’s going on in our lives. He knows every detail of our lives. He knows even how many hairs we have on our head according to Matthew 10:30. He’s watching over us all the time. Nothing escapes Him.He knows and cares about every detail of our lives, everything we do.

Now that can be comforting, or it can be disturbing depending on what it is we are doing.

Have you ever asked yourself how many times you are photographed in a day? When you walk into the bank or return your cart to the corral in the parking lot, somewhere there is a camera marking your every move. Our world is full of blue lights on street corners and whirring cameras mounted on walls.

We live in a day of proliferating knowledge. Our field of knowledge DOUBLES every 18 months! And did you know that some of that information is about you? George Barna, who says this:

"Organizations such as Donnelly Marketing can now make available detailed information about the 85 million of the 92 million households in America. Based upon combined data bases and statistical modeling techniques, these systems can describe with great accuracy your television viewing patterns, your radio listening habits, your magazine and newspaper reading preferences, your product purchasing by brand, household demographics and key attitudes and values."

That’s scary, isn’t it? That people out there know that much about us. Far more than we could ever imagine they could know. Edward Snowden revealed the top-secret “Boundless Informant” tool which details and maps by country the voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone networks. And we haven’t seen the end of it.

No doubt about it, we are living in an age of exploding knowledge and change. In this age of technology no one is safe not even you because you never know when your being watched or overheard.

Dr. John Baillie made it a practice to open his course on the doctrine of God at Edinburgh University with these words: “Gentlemen, we must remember that in discussing God we cannot talk about Him without Him hearing every word we say. We may be able to talk to our friendsbehind their backs, but God is everywhere, even in this classroom. Therefore, in all of our discussions we must be aware of His infinite presence and talk about Him, as it were, before His face.”

There is a story about a farmer who had a small patch of corn that hadn’t done very well one year so he decided he was going to "borrow" (wink, wink) corn from his neighbor’s field which had a much better yield of corn. So with a large sack underneath his arm, he took his son with him to "borrow" some of his neighbor’s corn. He quietly went to the farthest corner of the field. He looked carefully to the right, then to the left, then ahead of him, then behind him. As he as reaching out to get that first ear of corn, his son piped up, "Daddy, you forgot to look up!"

David tells us in Psalm 139 that at every moment of the day, we are under a much higher scrutiny. He reveals that the secret to understanding ourselves and our value is to know the God who knows us.

Knowing God is the solution to most of our problems. And if it doesn’t solve them, it will at least help us know how to handle them.

Knowing God better can make us more loving people and that will help us get along with others better. Knowing God helps us realize that everyone has value.

We are generally a product of our thinking.

Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an action and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.

Psalms 139: 2b “You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.”

Proverbs 23:7 “As a man thinks in his heart so is he.”

Psalms 139:4-6

4 You know what I am going to say    even before I say it, LORD.5 You go before me and follow me.    You place your hand of blessing on my head.6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,    too great for me to understand!

Before we speak God knows what we’re going to say. Our speaking reveals our hearts. And if we speak bad, negative or nasty words or evil words then those things live in our hearts, which means we have a heart problem.

Ephesians 4:29-30 “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

God, You already knew I was going to say that,and you knew I was going to regret it, couldn’t you have just, like warned me in advance,so that I could just keep my mouth shut?

Maybe if he just sent me an email once in a while, that said, Bekki, Friday at 2:38 pm, do not say anything. Keep your mouth shut. Use duct tape if necessary.

Signed, God.

Psalms 139:7-10

7 I can never escape from your Spirit!    I can never get away from your presence!8 If I go up to heaven, you are there;    if I go down to the grave, you are there.9 If I ride the wings of the morning,    if I dwell by the farthest oceans,10 even there your hand will guide me,    and your strength will support me.

A man offered a little boy, who was returning from a Bible class, a dollar if he would show him where God is. The little boy responded, "Mister, I’ll give you a dollar if you will show me where God ain’t!"

God is always present whether we believe it or not. In the early days of space travel, one of the Russian cosmonauts returned from orbiting the earth and had announced that when he had looked out of his space capsule he had not seen God anywhere. To which someone replied, “If he had Taken off his space suit for just one second, he would have seen God pretty quickly!”

He is always available to us wherever we go, 24 hours a day. The phrase 24/7 really originates with God He is on task every hour of every day and He’s already where we’re going.

The truth of God’s omnipresence can be soothing or unsettling. To some, it brings comfort. To others, it is convicting.

God’s constant presence convicts us.

The reason He convicts is so that He can get our attention. He loves us too much to let us keep hiding or running from Him.

Hebrews 4:13 puts it all in perspective: “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”

Hebrews 13:5 “…Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Because God is willing to be present with and to give guidance to every person, we also are to value every human being as worth relating to in positive, helpful ways.

Psalms 139:13-16

13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous— how well I know it.15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.16 You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

Bob Hope, as he was getting along in years, he once commented that he’d been reading and was astonished to discover: “Today my heart beat over 103,000 times, my blood traveled 168 million miles, I breathed 23,400 times,

I inhaled 438 cubic feet of air, ate 3 pounds of food, and drank 2.9 pounds of liquid, I perspired 1.43 pints… gave off 85.3 degrees of heat… generated 450 tons of energy, I spoke 4,800 words, I moved 750 major muscles, and I exercised 7 million brain cells. (pause…) It’s no wonder I’m tired all the time.”

Augustine once said, "People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars -- and they pass by themselves without wondering."

Most of us don’t realize how intricate and wondrous our bodies really are.

The Miraculous Human Body, Dr. John Medina, genetic engineer, University of Washington, in 1995 lecture at Multnomah Bible College, Portland, Oregon

The average human heart pumps over 1,000 gallons a day, over 55 million gallons in a lifetime. This is enough to fill 13 super tankers. It never sleeps, beating 2.5 billion times in a lifetime.

The lungs contain 1,000 miles of capillaries. The process of exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide is so complicated that "it is more difficult to exchange O2 for CO2 than for a man shot out of a cannon to carve the Lord’s Prayer on the head of a pin as he passes by."

DNA contains about 2,000 genes per chromosome—1.8 meters of DNA are folded intoeach cell nucleus. A nucleus is 6 microns long. This is like putting 30 miles of fishing line into a cherry pit. And it isn’t simply stuffed in. It is folded in. If folded one way, the cell becomes a skin cell. If another way, a liver cell, and so forth.

To write out the information in one cell would take 300 volumes, each volume 500 pages thick. The human body contains enough DNA that if it were stretched out, it would circle the sun 260 times.

The body uses energy efficiently. If an average adult rides a bike for 1 hour at 10 mph, it uses the amount of energy contained in 3 ounces of carbohydrate. If a car were this efficient with gasoline, it would get 900 miles to the gallon....

Then, there’s your brain which weighs about three pounds, but stores 100 trillion bits of information over the course of 70 years. That storage capacity is roughly equal to 500,000 sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica (which, if stacked, would stretch out over 442 miles). Your brain does all this and uses less power than a 100-watt bulb.

Your brain is serviced by about 45 miles of nerves that send impulses through your body as rapidly as 325 miles per hour. Your nervous system is so sensitive you are able to feel on your fingertips (or face) a pressure that depresses your skin a bare .00004 (400,000’s) inch - roughly the weight of a bee’s wing falling on your cheek.

Your eyes are capable of seeing a small candle flame from 30 miles away on a clear, dark night. And can distinguish among more than 300,000 different color variations

David wrote: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Psalms 139:14