$2.48 document may bring in $300K

The (Nashville) Tennessean
Published: 02.23.2007

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Many people dream of being the lucky so-and-so who went to a thrift store and bought a $2 item that turned out to be worth six figures.
Meet Michael Sparks, a Nashville music equipment technician for Soundcheck Nashville, who happens to be that so-and-so.
A rolled-up document he happened upon last March and paid less than $3 for turns out to be a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence. It might fetch a quarter-million at auction - or more.
Sparks found the document at the Music City Thrift Shop, thought it was interesting and asked for a price. The clerk took out a grease pencil and marked $2.48 on a piece of wood attached to the top of the document, and Sparks walked out the door with it.
"I saw that it said 1823, and I knew that the Declaration was 1776, and I was just interested. It also said 'by order of the government,' " said Sparks, who immediately started researching the piece online and through historical sources.
He determined that his find was an "official copy" of the Declaration of Independence, one of 200 copies commissioned by John Quincy Adams in 1820, when Adams was secretary of state, and printed by William Stone in 1823.
"I'm told that it could go for between $200,000 and $300,000," said Sparks, who is preparing to sell his find at auction next month through Raynors' Historical Collectible Auctions, a Burlington, N.C., auction house that specializes in historic documents.
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When Sparks bought the document, he had no idea of its value. Yet, for a mere pittance, he laid hold of this wonderful treasure! The value of the document was in its actual worth, not in what Sparks paid for it!

Naturally, I thought of the wondrous treasure of salvation that Christians lay hold of, not at the cost (to us) of a few bucks, but for simply saying “yes” to the offer! And it’s certainly worth more than $300K! Yet, the value of the gift of salvation is not in what we paid for it, but in what Christ paid for it!

Yet, how often have we treated our relationship to our Master as if it were a three-dollar tchotchke?