How Much is Jesus Worth? (unabridged)
Have you ever tried to conceptualize how wealthy Jesus Christ is? When you think of the wealthiest person you know, or know of, that is only a miniscule representation of Jesus’ net worth. After all, everything is His.
All the wealth of the world is His to disperse as He sees fit. He is God, owns all there is, and privileges us to manage portions of His holdings.
I was flipping through a celebrity magazine while waiting to catch a flight home the other day. There were several pages with pictures of this famous person on a yacht, that couple with their new $238,000 sports car, and an aerial photo of one celeb’s new $20,000,000 house.
Not only did Jesus make it all, He owns it all.
Gates, Slim, Buffet, Walton. These are not the richest people in the world even though reported to be such. Though the $75 billion fortune of Bill and Melinda Gates is a larger stash than the money in the coffers of many countries, it is a small fraction of Christ’s net worth.
This said, how long has it been since you read 2 Corinthians 8:9? “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.”
Christ expended everything in His quest to win our hearts.
As He sat in His glory, power, and opulence, considering the cost to invade the enemy’s stronghold and make a play to gain our allegiance, He determined that no cost was too great. Whatever His net worth was—even though well beyond our comprehension—He gambled it all in His invasion of this world, and in so doing became poor on our behalf.
As I consider this expenditure and place myself in His shoes, I doubt seriously that I would have made the same decision. Nevertheless, He spent it all. Though rich, He became poor. The Scripture defines this as grace, and as the recipients and beneficiaries of His wealth, we are reminded that we, “know the grace of our Lord Jesus.”
When Jesus announced His intention to the angels surrounding His throne, surely someone must have said, “What are you thinking?! This is lunacy. Why are you going to risk everything in a worthless investment? The folks down there don’t give a rip. Why would you condemn yourself to the poor house?”
I think His reply must have been, “I have a dream, a dream that one day my investment will fulfill my heart’s desire. I have a dream that I can live with people in celebration of a desperate redemption that paid off in grand fashion. I have a dream that if I make myself low enough, those I love will look down in their fallen condition, see me, and look up to my Father. I have a dream that my riches can be transferred to them, and that by my becoming poor, they will become rich. I have a dream that the wealth of my relationship with them will be the light illuminating all the moments of our eternity together. Yes, I have a dream. This is my dream.”
William Butler Yeats wrote in 1899, “Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, / Enwrought with golden and silver light, / The blue and the dim and the dark cloths / Of night and light and the half-light, / I would spread the cloths under your feet: / But I, being poor, have only my dreams; / I have spread my dreams under your feet; / Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
You are Christ’s dream, the individual for whom He gambled everything. His broken heart healed your broken heart. His life laid down made your life possible. His poverty rendered you rich.
You are the embodiment of His dream.
The enemy of God, the devil, Lucifer the fallen archangel tempts you to discount the price paid on your behalf. Should you agree with his deception, live in bondage to your old ways, submit yourself to the flesh, and languish in the destitution of your former bankruptcy, you discount the dream of Christ.
Tread softly, my friend. As the redeemed heirs of God we tread upon the dreams of Jesus the Christ, God incarnate, who dared to dream, gave all in order that we might have all, and who made it possible for us to dream as well.