Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – you don’t purchase the Kingdom, you find it and then you sell everything because you have been embraced by the kingdoms beauty.
Matthew 13:45-46 NIV
[45] “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. [46] When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
Observation
The Kingdom costs nothing and costs everything I have. The Kingdom of Heaven is found by looking. It’s not a reward to those who deserve, it’s found by those who look. To often the Kingdom is portrayed as earned by my efforts to be worthy, my good works earn me Gods favour, but this is so far from the truth. In actual fact earning often stops looking, for earning pays attention to myself, my efforts, and misses the offering of God to be found. It is only when I am looking for him, can he be found. And God wants to be found, He is inviting all who look to find Him, His love, mercy, grace, forgiveness, new life, eternal life.
But when found, the beauty of the kingdom, the beauty of the pearl of great value, will motivate me to sell everything, to give up everything else that held my heart, everything else that held the place of great value, and invest myself completely in the beauty of the God I found, who was always finding me. Finding is not a work, it’s a posture of acceptance. Finding is a posture that says ‘God you are looking to invite me into your love and I accept the invitation.’ Finding is not a religious activity of comprehension of belief systems, it is a heart response to loves’ seeking after me.
Application
Finding is my “yes” response, I will live with a constant “yes” over my life. I will allow beauty and not dutiful obedience to motivate my “selling of everything” that I have invested in that is not of the Kingdom. I will never invest in the lies of earn and deserve, for there is no currency other than love and beauty in the Kingdom of God.
Response
Thank you that love and beauty are the only motivations for life with you. This is mostly found in the intimacy of your presence, it’s not the beauty of ‘situational happy life,’ but the beauty of knowing I am loved and held in all seasons. I will not be whipped by the seasons of life into submitting to their pain, grief and hardship, and losing your embrace. I will live in the security of being found by you, in you, and never loose the beauty of your embrace to shape me in all of life’s seasons.
Meditation
Meditate – he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
Consider:
Do i know this beauty that grabs you so deeply that I will sell everything?
Have I made being found a chore rather than of posture?
JOURNEY DEEPER
