The other Bezos brother: Remembering the source of your personal worth

Like many others, my wife and I watched the Blue Origin flight this morning. I have written in recent days about Wally Funk, the oldest person ever to go to space, and Oliver Daemen, the youngest. Jeff Bezos is now the wealthiest person to travel into space and is well-chronicled as the founder of Amazon.

The fourth member of their crew is not as well known, however. I have seen few articles about Mark Bezos, Jeff’s younger brother, but his story is worth telling.

Mark is married to Lisa; together, they have four children. He and Jeff have one other sibling, a sister named Christina.

Mark graduated from Texas Christian University with a degree in advertising and public relations. For a time, he was CEO of his own marketing firm and is now a founding partner and marketing strategy lead at a social media training company. He has also worked for a decade at a New York-based antipoverty organization and has been a volunteer firefighter in Scarsdale, New York.

He is certainly not poor, having invested early in Amazon. He listed his Scarsdale home last year for $11 million. Jeff refers to him as his “best friend” and calls him “the funniest guy in my life.”

Here’s the point I wanted to make: Mark Bezos’ cultural significance today is derived from who he is, not what he has done. He had nothing to do with his birth. He did not get to choose his older brother. He rode on Blue Origin not because of his wealth or achievements but because of his familial status.

You and I stand in the same position today. Our ultimate status is derived not from what we have done but who we are. If Jesus is your Lord, you are the child of God: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1).

This is the transformational grace of Jesus at work: “To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13).

Once you became the child of God, you will forever be the child of God: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Just as Mark Bezos will always be the brother of Jeff Bezos, so you will always be the child of God.

My high school youth minister gave me the best single piece of advice I’ve ever received: Always remember the source of your personal worth.

Like Mark Bezos, your ultimate worth is derived not from what the culture applauds—your performance, possessions, and popularity—but from what our Father has done in your life. No one can make you any more or less valuable to God than you already are.

Here’s where your story and Mark Bezos’ story diverge: he cannot invite any of us to become his brother’s brother. He cannot offer us what he has received. But you and I can invite the whole of humanity to become children of the God of the universe. Any person on this planet who asks Jesus to forgive their sins and become their Lord will in that moment receive eternal life (John 3:16).

I invite you to take my youth minister’s adage to heart today. Live with gratitude for the transforming grace you could never deserve but can always share. Know that on the day when you take your “flight” from this world to the next, your Savior will welcome you into his paradise for eternity.

What will you do today to bring someone else with you?