(Actual Column Online) Who doesn’t like $100 bills? Yet, a $100 bill that is lost or even dormant in your pocket—while still worth a hundred dollars—is useless. It does not prove its value until you find it or take it out of your pocket and purchase something with it. The worth of that bill becomes activated when it's in your hands ready for a transaction.

Our lives can be likened to that $100 bill. We may be valuable and have intrinsic worth by virtue of being created in God’s image. But the question begs: Are we usable?

I was once a lost “$100 bill" who would claim "In God I trust," but who was living without trust in God. And like a billfold, I was holding value, but I was not allowing God to hold me. I was stuck in the “pocket of complacency.” 

From that same vein, one may believe he has high “monetary” significance—in his own eyes—but without placing that "money” (one’s life) back into God’s hands for His use, the worth and value becomes paper-thin. Temporary. 

I read recently that the late President John F. Kennedy’s golf clubs sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Obviously, the golf clubs themselves were not worth that much, but because they were once in the hands of a former president, their value became inflated tremendously. It wasn’t the clubs, but the hands that held the clubs.

Likewise, when we begin to understand our worth in God’s eyes and commit to giving Him back—for or His use—what He gave us, then it is in His hands that we will be properly valued and used.

You see, all of us have value, but not everyone allows their life to be used by God. Clearly, the person of my past fits that bill, but I thank God that He found it necessary to "foot the bill" of my guilt and shame by giving me His undeserving grace. And that's what I'm worth--appraised as righteous because of the sacrifice of Jesus.

I don’t know about you, but when I ponder these thoughts, and the high value placed upon me, and the deposit of the Holy Spirit within me, it excites me to place my life back in God’s hands for His good purpose.

After all, He purchased me, and I can’t think of a better investor backing my life.

[Maher is the teaching pastor at Coastal Christian Ocean City, and is president of Soldiers For Faith Ministries. Social Media and website: @TruthOverTrend]