Growing up, I was outnumbered. I still am to this day. What I mean by this is that I have five sisters, and there’s just one son: me. I never got hand-me-down clothes, and I got my own toys because boys don’t like Barbies. My first bike, however, was pink with pom-poms on the handles. Growing up with a single mom, she taught me a lot: how to treat others, how to carry myself and, most importantly, how to enjoy washing dishes and vacuuming.

Time with my father was different. See, my mom wasn’t super athletic, and she was always busy with work. My father wasn’t athletic either, but he wanted me to play all the sports. We spent most of our Saturdays together outside, throwing a football, swinging a bat or going to the bank (this may not sound significant, but he only ever took me, and it made me feel special). For the longest time, I got my worth from how my father treated me, which was usually based on my performance in whatever sport was in season. I was never exceptional at any sport, but he always made me feel loved and cherished.

I love my mom and dad a whole lot, and I know they love me the same (mostly), but this pales in comparison to the extent and depth of the love that God has for us. No matter how much you love your mother, father, son, daughter, sister or brother, nothing compares to the immeasurable love that God feels towards us. In Ephesians 1, we see God explain us in a new manner:

I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.
— Ephesians 1:18

When we think of inheritance today, we think of what is going to be left behind for us, whether it be money, property, or valuable things that a loved one has passed down. We put a sense of worth on these things that we hope to inherit because they’re valuable to us. In the same way, we are the valuable inheritance to God. He puts great worth on us. He puts himself in our lives because he cares. We are the things of value in God’s economy. (Randy said this in his sermon on Sunday, and I couldn’t help but use it.) God loves you so much that he would lay down his life for you. If that doesn’t speak into what you’re worth in his eyes, I don’t know what will.

We are the inheritance, but in God’s eyes, we are so much more valuable than money, than land, than family jewels. God’s love for us trumps every type or extent of love that we could ever expose ourselves to or even imagine.