“If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is – .”

Wednesday I got a grand tour of my first Heat Pellet mill at Maxwell Companies, Inc.. Heat pellets are changeing the way people heat their homes in the north. Traditionally, people have heated their homes with oil burning furnaces at about $400 per month. They can burn heat pellets in the same furnaces at the tune of about $150 per month. This has become a billion dollar industry. Can you guess what heat pellets are made of? Water and sawdust. It costs $13 to make a ton of wood pellets that can be sold at over $200 per ton.

How many times have you walked by or driven by a pile of sawdust? Would you ever have dreamed that a billion dollar industry could be born from a pile of dust? It’s useless, right? Wrong! Sawdust, in the right hands, could be priceless. Don’t you just hate people that come up with ideas like that? Don’t you envy them? The Pharisees did.

Jesus drove them crazy with the same kind of mind set. He kept walking by people that the religious leaders had deemed hopeless, useless and proclaiming them priceless. The woman at the well, the maniac of the Gadarenes, the woman caught in adultery; all lost, refuse of society but of more worth than diamonds in the hands of the Christ. The worth of something or someone depends on the perspective and the ability of the viewer. Jesus could see the potential and knew the possibilities of every person He saw.

I pray that I can train myself to see people the way He sees them. To know that they are prized by the Most High God. To understand that He can change someone that seems to have no worth into someone of infinite worth just by His simple and glorious touch. That’s what He did to me.

“Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumscised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men) – remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.” Eph. 2.11-13

I once was worthless and hopeless without God in this world but the blood of Christ, the living water, has given me worth. I am an heir to the Kingdom of God and a joint-heir with Jesus. I am prized by the Most High. I am no different than the prostitue or the drug addict or the worst sinner you can imagine. I once was as they are and they can be as I now am. The only difference in my life or any life is the transforming power of Jesus. “If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come.”

Simon thought that Jesus didn’t know what kind of a woman was touching Him. He knew exactly what kind of woman this was; priceless. If we, as believers, are going to make a difference on this planet we are going to have to change the way we look at all those around us. Everyone is priceless. Everyone is prized by the Most High. Everyone can be changed from useless to priceless through the awesome transforming power of Jesus Christ. We just need to touch more people or allow more people to touch us. And don’t forget what kind of people they are.