A couple Saturdays ago at around 11 a.m., as I was passing by the street next door (Brookmill), I saw a lady putting together a large yard sale. On the grass of her front yard, she put out a lot of interesting items particularly Halloween stuff. She also put out a sign saying, "Bricks are for free. Please come in take them all." Upon checking I saw a pile of cinder blocks which are good for decorative purposes. These are not available at the Home Depot. I know each of them is worth a dollar or two at least. But the price tags she put on the Halloween stuff such as masks, ghost images, or Dracula costumes, were priced high. To me, the bricks were worthy, whereas the Halloween stuff are a bunch of garbage. So I took the cinder block as much as my RAV4 could carry.
So different people hold different concept of values/worthiness.
Christians however value the Lamb as the most worthy. In fact to them the Lamb is the standard and source of all that are worthy, for among all other reasons, through his sacrifice, Jesus the Lamb, opened the way for the worthless to come back to the Father, only to be made worthy in the Father who in His love sent His Son, to redeem the lost, just as it is written: "You were redeemed...with the precious blood of the Christ a lamb without blemish or defect." 1Pe 1:19 The other day I bought a pot of plant called "Schlumbergera", a classic plant for [Christmas] holiday display. The plant comes with beautiful succulent notched leaves and trumpet shaped blooms. The red flowers were almost like the color of the blood freshly rushing down from the body of Jesus on the cross!
In the Book of Revelation there is the lyric of a heavenly song, "Worthy is the Lamb." Rev 5:12
Revelation 4-5 represent the picture of the final product (in God's mind) of his salvation work. Chapter 4 depicts the positive aspect of it in terms of what he selects as valuable, chapter 5 negative aspect in terms of what he has to discard as worthless. The end picture of God's salvation work as described in these two chapters denotes the mystery of God revealed to John, for the Apostle Paul noted, the mystery of God is Jesus Christ, and the mystery of Christ is oneness in the sense of "one body" (Ephesians 3:6), that is, to form one person out of two (Jews and Gentiles). The picture of the 'finished' product of God's redemption work in John 4-5 is in fulfillment of what Jesus said in John 14:20 (the Father in Jesus, Jesus in the disciples, disciples in Jesus). Note also the practical reason for the saints singing, "Worthy is the Lamb": "...they will reign on the earth." In the day of John, the horrible people like the Roman Emperor Nero were reigning, and saints were treated as worthless. But sooner than later God will turn the tables.
In the Bible the word 'worthy' is repeated 49 times of which Jesus used up 7 times while he was on earth plus 1 after his departure. The usage of the term 'worthy' (as opposed to 'worthless' or 'shameful') has a consistent theme: "follow the Lamb and be made worthy, reject him, and remain worthless." Matthew 10:11,37,38; cf. Romans 2:7,23; Psalm 4:2; Proverbs 11:4; 1Ch 16:10; Isaiah 44:9)
So what is your choice?
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