DAILY READING
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REFLECTION
Precious Treasure
by Mary Alice McGinnis
Imagine an immense treasure chest filled with wondrously stunning and precious treasure. The chest is so large, you need a ladder to climb to the top of it. In fact, it gets bigger and bigger as you watch it expand right before your eyes. With all the strength you have, you lift the lid of the treasure chest.
When you open it, the shinning brilliance of the treasure contained inside is so bright it nearly blinds you. You shield your eyes and want to look away. Yet the beauty of it captivates you and you long to see more!
What is this precious treasure?
2 Peter 1:1 says: “To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours.”
Our faith is this precious treasure. What makes this gift of faith so precious?
Last Sunday’s reading from 1 Peter 1:18-19 says, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” (1 Peter 1:18-19)
Have you considered how precious you are to God? He was willing to pay a ransom for YOU! Not a ransom of silver and gold, nor any other temporal thing. He paid the price of His own dearly loved, precious Son, Jesus Christ.
In exchange for our failures and sins, God bestowed on us Jesus, as our righteousness. Bought at such a great cost, His own precious blood. What a precious gift!
But there is MORE! 2 Peter 1:2 says, “Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.”
Typically, when we think of precious things (like precious gems) they are not only precious because they are highly valuable, but also because they are extremely rare. Their limited supply only compounds their worth.
Not so with God’s precious treasure! This is the treasure that just keeps on growing! Instead God says to us, “I have an abundance of grace and peace for you, in limitless supply. My storehouse of good things never runs dry. My abundance is exceedingly more than all you can ask or imagine.”
As we dig deep into the inexhaustible mine of God's Word for the treasures of faith, we may find them quite ordinary at first. But God takes what seems ordinary, and shaves a little here, polish a little more there, until the full splendor of the treasure is revealed.
Learning to know God and His amazing love for us is a limitless, timeless, mining operation that will result in an over abundance of eternal treasures that NO ONE can ever take away.
Jesus – God – the Savior and Lord of all – invites all of us to a different kind of life, a godly one.
A godly life is TRUE life. It is life as it was intended, a life that is totally devoted to Him!
A life where we are invited to devote ourselves to the truth of who God is, and grasping tightly to His precious promises, “so that through them you may participate in the divine nature.”
God invites us to join with Him and be partakers of the stupendous glory of His Divine nature, in ever more increasing measure - today, tomorrow and for all eternity!
This is precious treasure of our faith.
PRAYER PRACTICE
Prayer – Use this ancient hymn, “Jesus Priceless Treasure” as your prayer today.
Hence, all fear and sadness!
For the Lord of gladness, Jesus enters in.
Those who love the Father, though the storms may gather,
Still have peace within.
Yea, whate’er I here must bear,
Thou art still my purest pleasure.
Jesus, priceless treasure!
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