I keep staring at the blinking cursor. Surprisingly, it's hard to put into words the things I want to express. It's weighty, and joyful and inspiring. It's a concept I've been processing of Jesus as a treasure. Actually-- the treasure.
My relationship with God is multi-faceted. It takes on different forms in different seasons. Sometimes he's Father, sometimes Comforter, other times Savior. But I keep pondering Jesus as my Treasure.
Everyone has something that motivates them. It's the engine behind their actions, the things they get up and do everyday. What we believe about God shapes the kind of faith we live. If you believe he is a comforter primarily, you might run to him most naturally when you're sad. If you believe he is an oppressor, you might run away. If you believe he is the fount of all wisdom you might study him and cherish his words. But having experienced a range of beliefs about who God is, I've recently come to believe that the most genuinely radical and free faith comes when you believe God is Treasure.
When God is your Treasure the world and its pleasure pale. Only when he is Treasure can you foresake mother, father and riches in abandonment to his will. It's when he is Treasure that seeking his face, being in his presence and communing with him stop becoming practices, burdens, a means to an end and start becoming all that matters.
It's when Christ is Treasure that idolatry is dethroned. When our will bends it's knee not out of oppression, duty or call, but glad and joyful surrender. It's true belief that the thing you are giving up is vaporlike compared to the riches of knowing Jesus Christ.
When Jesus is treasure life stops being about you.
I long to treasure Christ more. My biggest barriers to radical faith, to self-abandonment and pursuing him above all else come when I treasure something more than I treasure him. It breaks my heart and it also humbles me. When I see how chained to my earthly desires I am, I quickly realize how only divine intervention can break the shackles that bind my heart. I see that there is nothing I can do that will truly free me from my imprisonment to my will and my desires-- it has to be him.
I'm incapable of having that kind of faith in and of myself. I can study the Bible, go to church, even pray, but unless God intervenes, I will keep pursuing Self. Those things can aide in helping me see Christ as the Treasure that he is, but only the Holy Spirit has the power to change.
I've claimed Jesus as mine for almost 10 years now. And everyday I still need him to come into my heart and free me from myself. Not that my position in Christ ever changes! No, that work is done. But the sanctification of my heart relies on daily, hourly, moment-by-moment intervention.
Radical living comes when he is being treasured. And it brings him the most glory. Because it's an act of worship not committed out of duty, obligation or routine-- but out of a love and delight in his person.
So today..... I pray that he will establish himself as my Treasure. Whatever that could mean.