Treasuring Christ...we love to talk about treasuring Jesus. There are many ways we say it. We say, “Jesus, plus nothing = everything,” or “Jesus is all that I need” or this: “Jesus is the desire of my heart,” or yet another way to say this is the way that God did in His Word, “You will have no other gods before Me.” Many different ways to say that Jesus Christ is the treasure of our hearts. And it’s easy to say these things, isn’t it? In fact, we love to talk about it and we love to sing about it. But my question is do we love to live it? Do we live like Jesus is our treasure? Or do we instead live like Jesus is the means to other treasures that we want?
First of all, I think we can all safely assume that none of us wholly treasures Jesus. If we did, we would be without sin. Every time we sin, we sin because we are treasuring something else more than Christ. Think about it. Think about a sin in your life that you are currently struggling with. Why do you keep going back to that behavior? It’s because that thing...whatever that thing is for you...is cherished by you...it’s what you think about. It’s what you desire. It’s what you are drawn to. And so eventually, you go after it. You fall back in to pursuing something that you know, deep down inside is wrong. As humans, every choice we make, every decision we make, is made from the desires of our hearts. And that’s why Jesus goes after our hearts. Whether it’s where we choose to sit in a crowd of people, to what we want for dinner, to what we do in secret, it all finds its root down in the desires of our hearts...the things we treasure.
That’s why, if you are struggling with a sin, the solution to that struggle is Christ...fixing your eyes on HIM, learning to love Him more, learning to value Him more, learning to know Him more. Our sanctification is a life-long journey of learning to treasure Christ above all things. Over and over again, a thousand times a day, we are faced with opportunities to learn this valuable lesson. The longings in our hearts are great revealers of what it is we actually treasure. The longings themselves are not wrong. We all long for many good things. But what we do with these longings, will reveal to us who or what is actually our treasure.
For example, the longing to be married. Marriage is something that God created and designed both for His glory, picturing for the world the beautiful mystery of the gospel, but also for our enjoyment. It is a good gift from a good God. But like all of God’s good gifts for us, we have the natural tendency to take the gift and treasure the gift rather than the Giver of the gift. How would this look? Treasuring marriage over Christ would mean, you pursue a relationship at all cost without consideration to what God would have for you. You would be willing to choose a person who does not know Jesus or who isn’t committed to Jesus to marry, if marriage is your treasure. When Jesus is your treasure, you will glad lay down the dream of marriage for whatever Jesus has for you.
While we are on the topic of marriage, let’s talk about sex. Sex is another one of those things created by a good God as a good gift for his creation. But when we treasure the gift over the Giver of the gift, the gift becomes ultimate. We will pursue sex at all costs regardless of the parameters that God has given in His Word as to His intentions for sex: that it is between 1 man and 1 woman under the covenant of marriage. So when sex is the treasure that we seek, we will either deny what God’s Word says about sexual immorality and do what we want, or we will manipulate God’s Word...twist it...somehow use God as a means to get our own way.
God is not a killjoy...the crusher of people’s happiness...trying to spoil all our fun. He is the creator of happiness and joy and all things that are good. But again, like I've said before, we can take something that God has given to us as a gift and turn it into the ultimate thing and our personal happiness is just such a thing. When our personal happiness is our treasure, we will do anything in pursuit of that treasure. We will leave our marriages, we will make decisions rooted in our own happiness, we will choose to do things that could bring harm to us, we will break off relationships that speak truth to us or in some way make us unhappy, just to name a few things. We will say things like “God would never want me to be this unhappy” and convince ourselves that what we are doing is right with God. But what we don’t realize is that in truth it is God Himself alone who makes us happy. Every other thing that we pursue for the treasure of personal happiness is fleeting. C.S. Lewis said, “The pain I feel now, is the happiness I had before” and this in fact is deep truth. The happiness we pursue outside of God will last for a moment and in time, will leave us once again, empty, sad, and in pursuit of yet another thing that we insist will make us happy.
Instead of pursuing other things, instead of treasuring the gifts, let us pursue, learn to know, and treasure the Giver of the good gifts. How do we do this? How do we learn to Treasure Christ? We learn it moment by moment. We learn it in the midst of disappointments. We learn it in the midst of suffering. We learn it when we take the time to look at the longings that we feel...longings for a spouse... longings for a spouse that loves us...longing for children...longings for happiness...as opportunities to treasure Christ. How does Christ fill your longing for a spouse? What is it that your are longing for from that spouse...does Christ fill that in you? Each and every time you are disappointed, or your needs are left unmet...look for ways that Christ has NOT disappointed you...how HE has met all your needs.
Pray that the Holy Spirit will open your eyes so that you can see and savor your Savior. Remember the cross...remember the gospel...the good news of God. Remember that before the foundations of the world, Jesus was the Lamb for sinners slain. Remember, that Jesus fully knows you...every single thing about you...the good, the bad, the ugly and STILL He went to the ends of the earth, gave His life for you, pursued you, chased you down with a love like none other, so that you could be HIS treasure!
We are the treasure that He gave His life for! What other response can we have, but to learn treasure the One who has first treasured us!!!
Post a Comment