But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
I have spent enough time practicing contract law to know that nobody pays full price for something they consider worthless. Every dollar spent tells you something about what the buyer believes the item is actually worth. So when I read in the Bible the unimaginable price God was willing to pay for us and, who we were at the moment He paid it, I cannot get past what that says about how He sees us. The Bible is specific:
For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. (Romans 5:10)
We were God’s enemies—His active opponents. Yet He gave:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
He sent His only Son. Not a servant, not an angel, not something replaceable from an endless supply. His only Son, handed over for people who were, at that very moment, working for His worst enemy. Peter explains:
Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. (1 Peter 1:18-19)
Silver and gold are the highest forms of currency people usually imagine when they picture a costly ransom, and Peter dismisses them as insufficient. The price paid for us was not measured in currency at all. It was measured in blood, specifically the blood of a sinless Son who owed nothing and gave everything. Paul wrote:
For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. (1 Corinthians 6:20)
You do not pay a price like that for something you consider ordinary. Once we understand the size of God’s payment, we should consider what it means about what we become once that price is paid. When we are born again, God calls us His own possession, set apart for a special reason.
For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. (Deuteronomy 7:6)
God calls us His jewels, the kind of treasure we guard rather than something we misplace without noticing.
They shall be Mine, says the Lord of hosts, on the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him. (Malachi 3:17)
God gives us His purpose so we are never confused about what to do with this kind of worth.
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)
Being treasured by God was never meant to end with us. It was meant to be replicated. We are surrounded by people who have no idea that the same price has been offered on their behalf. If I truly believe I am God’s priceless treasure, then I have to ask what I am doing with it. Am I hoarding it to accommodate more of my own comfort? Am I wasting it with the distraction of building the wood, hay, and stubble of this world? Or am I letting it transform my life so completely that my life is full of opportunities to minister to those around me—down to how I treat the coworker who annoys me or the stranger whose life looks nothing like mine? Every one of them was priced the exact same way I was—at the cost of God’s own Son. Jesus told us how others would actually know who we belong to:
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:34-35)
So, if I am God’s priceless treasure, what am I doing with it today? Am I studying, discipling, active in a church, praying daily for the lost souls around me, and engaged passionately in spiritual warfare?
My friend, I ask God to challenge you as He is challenging me to be passionate about the buried treasure all around us!
There is not a moment to waste. We are not promised tomorrow. Do you know someone who does not know Jesus? Please don’t wait to share the eternal treasure of salvation with them. Jesus paid the ultimate price to make us His treasure—don’t keep it to yourself!
Prayer:
Lord, thank You for paying a price I could never repay, not because I was worth saving on my own merit, but because of who You are. Thank You for calling me Your treasure while I was still Your enemy. Help me to stop keeping that truth to myself. Show me the people in front of me today who need to see You—through how I treat them—so that they know they are also highly treasured. Let my life be proof of who You say I am. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.
