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Where Does Your Significance Come From?
Video Version below.
Where does your significance come from? Would your value be crushed if, like Job, you lost everything? We all want and need a sense of importance. We want to matter; we want our lives to matter. We are going to return to 2 Kings as we look at this question.
Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”
Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied… So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”
But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.
Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. 2 Kings 5:2-5, 9-14, NIV
Who is the most significant person in this well-known story? Who do you think it is? Elisha, the mighty man of God, the miracle worker? Naaman, the enemy soldier who needed a miracle? How about Naaman’s servants? Without them, Naaman would never have followed the directions which resulted in his healing.
They were all important. If anyone was missing, the story would not have happened. But there is someone in this story who is very significant from God’s point of view. Without her, the story would never have even got started. Of course, I talking about Naaman’s Israelite slave girl. We talked about her in part one of this series, and we will continue looking at this important character in Scripture.
From a worldly point of view, this girl was about as insignificant as possible. She was a girl in a male-dominated society. She was young, probably a pre-teen or a young teen. And she was a slave in a foreign country, cut off from family, friends and, most importantly, any outward connection with God. Yet when we look at the couple of verses in which she is mentioned, we don’t see self-pity or an inferiority complex. Where did she get her sense of significance?
Let’s pause for a moment and consider what makes us feel significant. Where do we get our value in life? This is an important question to ask, and different people will come up with different answers. Does our significance come from our family, friends and similar relationships? Do we find our value in our work or our accomplishments? Is it our house or possessions that make us feel important? Is our volunteer work or charitable giving what makes us feel like we have meaning in life? Or is it something else? That is not to say that these things are unimportant and may provide secondary sources of value.
Where Does Your Significance Come From?
None of these things would have applied to this young girl. She was separated from family and friends; she owned nothing [or very little], she was not working where she wanted, and even her time was not her own. Yet she had found significance in the only One Who can give true meaning in life. She had total confidence in God. She knew her value came from her connection with God. We see this as she shared with confidence that God’s prophet could heal the unhealable leprosy. As a man in a refugee camp is quoted as saying, “I never knew Jesus was all I needed until Jesus was all that I had.”
As Christians we must, like this young girl, find our primary source of significance in God. We know that God has specifically designed us and placed us at this point in history for a very special reason. He is in control of our lives. As we look at elsewhere, the bad things that happen in our lives may be the result of our sin, the sin of others, or simply living in a sinful world and not the direct will of God. However, that in no way takes control out of God’s hands, and He will use whatever our situation is to His glory and our benefit. When our primary significance comes from God, we can have a healthy self-image no matter what our situation in life is. People may criticize us, run us down and try to make us feel insignificant. While it hurts, they are not ones we should be looking to for our value. They did not give us value, and they cannot take it away. It is God Who makes us important, not other people, our surroundings or even our actions.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism says that we were created to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. If that is the centre from which we operate, we will not have an issue with significance. We may be famous in the eyes of the world or totally unknown. We may be like the roses on the king’s table or wildflowers blooming unseen by human eyes on a remote mountainside. God loves both, and both glorify God.
The only truly worthless person is the person in hell. There they are locked in a cell - alone, valueless, purposeless - for all eternity. It is destiny they have chosen by rejecting God’s free offer of salvation through Jesus Christ. Don’t let that be you! God valued you so much that He was willing to sacrifice His only begotten Son to a horrible death on the cross so that He could offer salvation to you. That’s how much significance God has placed on you. If you have never accepted Jesus as Lord and Saviour, now is the time. Bow your head, confess that you are a sinner and a rebel against God, ask for His forgiveness and commit your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It costs you nothing, and it costs you everything. If you need more information, find a Christian friend or a local true Christian Church, and ask them about God’s marvellous plan of salvation. Don’t delay, your eternal life depends on it.
Where is your significance from? For the Christian, true significance comes from a right relationship with Jesus Christ which will grow for all eternity. That can never be lost, and everything else should flow from that relationship in a desire to glorify the God we love.
For the video message of Part One of the Naaman's Slave Girl series, Be A Blessing, click here.
For more information about Glenn Davis, see our About Glenn page or visit Glenn Davis Books.
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