My granddaughter is at the age of adventure. She is three and she lives to be outdoors. While going through a pirate phase, we decided to set up a treasure hunt for her. We bought some small toys and put in a box and buried it in the yard. We then made picture cards of clues leading to the treasure, which had an “X” made from sticks marking the spot. As she made her way from clue to clue, her excitement kept increasing. Each time she would find one, she would jump up and down screaming, “I found it!” and we would then study the clue to see where we needed to look next. When we found the spot and dug up the treasure, she was so excited and gleeful that at first, she was not even worried about what was inside the box, only that she had found the buried treasure.
My youngest son is one who thinks outside the box. He will look for ways to make extra money that most people would not consider. For example, he buys up Pokemon cards and assesses their value for sale. He has soft and hard plastic sleeves for them, and depending on what they are worth determines what type of sleeve they will go in. A few days ago, he came running to my bedroom, urgently asking me to get one of the soft sleeves out, as he was gently holding a card by its edges. His adrenaline was surging, his voice and his hands were shaky. As we got the card into a soft sleeve, and then into a hard one as well, he looked at me and told me that the card in his hands was one that could sell to up to $1000. He had the same type of excitement and glee that my granddaughter did when she discovered her treasure.
Treasure. It is displayed in our museums on walls and behind protected glass. It is searched for by archeologists all over the world to connect us to days long past. It is displayed in counters in settings of silver and gold, shaped into rings and pendants that we can wear. It is a child’s rock collection, it is a library, it is Wall Street. We are surrounded by what anyone of us could consider to be treasure.
In his letter to Ephesus, Paul wrote, “For this reason, I fall on my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and earth receives its character. I pray that from the treasures of His glory He will empower you with inner strength by His Spirit, so that Messiah may live in your hearts through your trusting. Also I pray that you will be rooted and grounded in love, so that you, with all God’s people, will be given strength to grasp the breadth, length, height, and depth of the Messiah’s love, yes, to know it even though it is beyond all knowing so that you will be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him, who by His power working in us is able to do far beyond anything we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the Messianic Community and in the Messiah Yeshua from generation to generation forever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:14-21
What beautiful words of edification! “I pray that from the treasures of His glory He will empower you with inner strength by His Spirit”. Empowered with treasure of God’s glory by His Spirit, what an amazing prayer.
Jesus Himself spoke of treasure in parables saying, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. A man found it, hid it again, then in great joy went and sold everything he owned, and bought that field. Again, the Kingdom is like a merchant on the lookout for fine pearls. On finding one very valuable pearl he went away, sold everything he owned and bought it.” Matthew 13:44-46
The ultimate treasure is found in Him and His kingdom. He is the treasure in the field, He is the pearl of great price, He is the eternal treasure. Everything that we store up down here is going to fade away and will not last, because the things of this world are temporary. The things of God are eternal. In Matthew 6:19-21 Jesus taught “Do not store up for yourselves wealth here on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and burglars break in and steal. Instead, store up for yourselves wealth in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and burglars do not break in or steal. For where your wealth is, there your heart will be also.”
The closer I draw to Jesus, the less I care about “stuff”. My house is full of stuff, and over the past few weeks, I have noticed that the closer I draw to Him, the less I care about all this earthly treasure. I am able to enjoy the things I have without being chained to them, because my heart is not caught up in what I own as it used to be. My heart is caught up in Yeshua, Jesus and the treasure that He wants to empower me with through His Spirit. I can take nothing in my home with me when I die. Well, that is not quite true. The Bible the Word of God, I will take that with me. Not in its written form in a bound book, but in its written form on my heart. God’s Word is eternal. Jesus said in Matthew 24:35 “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”
When Jesus becomes our glorious treasure, our lives begin to change. We don’t see things as we did before. Our priorities are no longer on the THINGS of this world, but on the PEOPLE in this world. We get to the place where we want to share the greatest treasure that ever existed with those who have not seen or heard. There is a battle going on around us in the spiritual every single second of every single day. Our part in this battle is prayer, sharing the gospel, loving others, and yet we often loose sight of that. Jesus is crying out for the soul of every human being on this planet, and sometimes we get caught up in our things, even our Christian things. I am not saying things are bad, what I am saying, is that we can not allow things to take up more place in our hearts and our lives that Him. He is the treasure, and we should be sharing this treasure with everyone we come in contact with.
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