Photo Source: www.creationswap.com by Tylyn Taylor
Have you ever felt that God is just too big to be understood? That his Kingdom principles are just too rare and refined and lofty for us? When we look at the world and try to understand God’s plan is it just too complicated to be understood? When we see sin and natural disasters, and try to reconcile the goodness of God with the world around us – it can be overwhelming.
In the book of Isaiah God says, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (55:9).
And the Apostle Paul writes, “how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” And in another place he says, “we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world” (Rom. 11:6 & 1 Cor. 2:7). Indeed God is mysterious, and his thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts, that when we come to know God and begin to understand his thoughts, as He reveals himself to us in ways we can understand, that is something to treasure.
Perhaps this is why Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man has found, he hides, and for joy thereof goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.” (Matthew 13:44-46)
The treasure hid in the field and the rare and expensive pearl, both cost the person everything to obtain. The value they saw in what they found was worth everything they had. But first they had to recognize what they found.
In the first case it almost seems accidental. Someone walking through a field and they stubble across something that just happened to be there. Maybe they were taking a shortcut from place to place, or walking out in the country just to enjoy the day. When suddenly there it is – peeking out from among the weeds, or perhaps half buried under the fallen leaves of a tree, or in the soil on the edge of a stream. But they knew what they found. They recognized it for the treasure it was.
And in the other case the man was an expert in pearls. He was a seeker, a merchant, and an expert on the quality and value of these precious commodities. He was looking for something special. And when he saw the pearl, the one pearl that he knew was worth more than all that he had, he traded, and sold everything else that he had collected and previously treasured. He knew that this pearl was the one pearl that he had to have more than any other.
This is what it’s like, Jesus said, when you find the Kingdom of Heaven. You may not be looking for it, or you may be on a quest. But when you find it, its worth everything.
I think part of what Jesus means is that because the things of God, the mysteries of his thought and his ways, the depth of his wisdom and understanding are so far beyond us that when we see it, when we recognize the treasure for what it is, when we grasp the “Kingdom of Heaven” we can’t help but to be filled with joy and give up everything for it.
What treasure have you found in the Kingdom?