In Christ: Know It, Live It - 23 (God's Glorious Treasure: You and Me)

"...That you may know...what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints..." Ephesians 1:18

Paul prays that the saints may know God more deeply as the God who has made them His eternal inheritance. This inheritance is GLORIOUS. It is GREAT, it shines with the GLORY OF GOD'S GRACE. It was His choice to make us His treasure. See Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy 7:6-8. It had nothing to do with us in terms of merit or worthiness or desirable beauty...there was NONE. But God awaits the day, under His sovereign timing, when He will get what He has assigned as His own portion for all eternity...you and me.

I frankly would have chosen something or someone better. But this choice of inheritance displays HIS GLORY, NOT OURS. It will put on display throughout the endless ages of eternity the gracious, merciful nature of our God to redeem the hopeless and give them a place in His house. It is ALL about HIM. We will not spend billions and billions of years wondering at the TREASURE, but at the TREASURING God! It will all be to "show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (2:7).

In John 5 Jesus went to the Pool of Bethesda, a place that was like a cross between an outdoor nursing home and an open hospital ward...with no doctors or nurses. This was a place where invalids - blind, lame, and paralyzed folks lay hoping for the water of the pool to be stirred by an angel (?) so that the first person in the water could experience divine healing. That day Jesus healed ONE MAN, a man who had been an invalid for 38 years and had little to no hope that he would ever experience the gracious healing of the pool. Jesus simply said, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk" (v.8). At once the man did! WHY did Jesus, who was full of compassion, heal only this one man? WHY did Jesus, on the day of YOUR SALVATION, walk into the graveyard of humanity that was all around you and speak to you, like to this hopeless, helpless invalid, and raise you from the dead to new life? Why did He choose YOU that day to become His fellow heir of the Father's riches in glory? Why did He not also choose all of those around you? The ANSWER IS IN HIM! Mysterious, overflowing, sovereign grace is the answer. From spiritual graveyard to heavenly treasure. Who EVER had a greater rags to riches tale than YOU and ME?

God can be to us a Policeman, watching our every move for infractions. God can be to us a Nagging Mom, relentless in correction in the pursuit of perfection. God can be to us a Distant Judge, touching us only with the letter of a compassion-less law. God can be to us a Cold Neighbor, only seen as He goes about His necessary duties but with never a smile or personal acknowledgment. OR God can be seen as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who in mercy and love and grace that dwarfs the oceans came to us while we were dead in our transgressions and made us alive together with Christ and raised us up to be HIS ETERNAL TREASURE.

"O Spirit of God, do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Open our eyes to see the TREASURING GOD who is our Father and open our hearts to love and worship Him more fully forever. Amen"