What Changes When Christ Becomes Your Greatest Treasure?
Rev. Aniekan "Mbomboyo" Okokon ·
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. — Matthew 13:44
The man in the parable did not sell everything out of duty. Jesus says he did it in his joy. He had found something worth more than all he owned, and parting with all he owned was not loss to him; it was the obvious thing to do. That is what treasuring Christ is: not a discipline you maintain but a valuation that has changed everything downstream.
Desire changes
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Nobody has to force their heart to go where their treasure is; it goes on its own. When Christ becomes the treasure, the heart stops needing to be dragged to prayer, to the Word, to the gathering. It wants to be where He is. The disciplines remain, but they change from fences into paths.
Fear changes
Most fear is the fear of losing a treasure - money, health, reputation, a person. When the treasure is Christ, the one thing you most fear losing is the one thing that cannot be lost. Everything else can be held with an open hand, because everything else was never the treasure.
Giving changes
The man sold all he had and did not feel poorer. Believers who treasure Christ give in the same spirit. They are not paying a tax on their income; they are spending trinkets on the field where the treasure lies. Generosity stops being a sacrifice and becomes an investment made in joy.
Suffering changes
Paul in prison, singing. Stephen under the stones, seeing Jesus. Countless believers who lost everything and said they had gained. When Christ is the treasure, suffering can take the things around Him and cannot take Him, and the people who know this are the most unshakeable people on earth.
A question to sit with
- What would it cost you to lose Christ tomorrow, compared with losing your job, your savings, your health?
- If the honest answer is that the other losses frighten you more, do not despair. Ask Him to show you His worth. He is the treasure whether you feel it or not, and He is glad to be found.
When Christ becomes your greatest treasure, you do not become a poorer person with fewer things. You become the man in the field, hardly able to believe his luck, going home to sell what he has.