Bob,
I like what you say about our worth. It reminds me of this: Luk 12:6-7 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Christ has gone to great lengths to assure us that we are loved.
As you say, if we weren’t valuable to God, why would He bother with us? But our value is not something we create in ourselves–it is simply that God cares for us.
Ultimately, that is why we can be confident in our hope that all will be saved.
To that I’d say: God judges the man’s heart. I’m not really satisfied with how I expressed what I was trying to say. I wrote it in response to the possibility that we can take some kind of credit for our salvation, but looking from another angle–the one you expressed above, my response would be somewhat different. I strongly believe that we have to actively will and choose, and that we are called to do so. But with humility because it is not of ourselves. We do not make ourselves, but through obedience we participate in God’s creating of us. As James puts it, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you…”
Perhaps George MacDonald expresses well what I mean in this quote:
“He gives us the will wherewith to will, and the power to use it, and the help needed to supplement the power: … but we ourselves must will the truth and for that the Lord is waiting … The work is His, but we must take our willing share. When the blossom breaks forth in us, the more it is ours the more it is His.”