44 "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45 "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, 46 "who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and
sold all that he had and bought it. (Matthew 13:44-46, NKJV).
In January of 1848, John Marshall discovered gold at Sutters Mill in California. What was it like for him when he knew he had found a major source of gold? By the next year thousands of prospectors raced to California in hopes of finding the treasure and claiming the land that contained it. Between 1848 and 1849 the population of California grew from 15,000 to over 100,000. When there is such a strong motivation in a person, it is difficult to stop him from getting to his goal.
Imagine the pearl merchant who had dealt with pearls all his life. He was an expert, who more that almost anyone had learned to appreciate the semitransparent luster of refracted light in the pearls. All his knowledge and accumulated appreciation for pearls came to a climax on that day, he found the one pearl that surpassed every other he had ever seen. He just had to have that pearl, it was a pearl of a life time, his life time of developing delight, the desire, the finding, and the decision that having it was worth everything.
Christ is the treasure and the pearl. His nature that perfectly reflects that of the Father are the most beautiful and profound that exist. All perceivable beauty has come from the invisible heart of God. However since God is invisible it takes the practiced eye of the pearl merchant to see beauty that passes most by. It seems that God is coquettish by nature. He clearly enough manifests the loveliness of His invisible attributes through the multiform overwhelming artistry of nature so that there is no real excuse for those who don't see. (Romans 1:20) However God veils the most sublime so that only those who are able to receive the gift of delight, desiring and the love of beauty, creating thirst and hunger, seek to find the invisible artist of living delight behind the visible artistry. (Prov.25:2)
God is a romantic, not a hopeless one, but a hope filled one drawing those who will follow into falling in love as they are able to perceive more and more of the depth of His loveliness. David, the one whom God gave testimony that he was after or conformed unto His own heart was clearly such a person. The Psalms are full of the romantic heart he had developed towards God. Though a great warrior and king these great abilities that he developed out of his relationship with God were never the center of his heart's desires. In Psalm 27 after exalting the protection and the security that he felt no matter what the circumstances, David reveals what really was most important to him. "One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple." (Psalms 27:4, NKJV).
David had fallen in love with God above all things. He had been able to perceive beyond the perception of most who only see a God who requires an outward obedience of duty. His heart had expanded to see the much greater heart of God whose thoughts are way above our thoughts, a God who delights in a personal relationship with those who will seek Him, a God of such perfection of beauty in His character, expression, artistry and aspirations for a deep intimate relationship with men so that when one can begin to perceive what God has in His heart one can do nothing but fall into awesome overwhelming love with Him, desiring nothing but to participate in the beauty of His unflawed and delightful plan.
God is the only one who can rightfully be in love with Himself and seek that His own glory be most loved and admired. He can find nothing outside of Himself that is beyond the sublimity of His own aesthetic sensitivities. Before the creation came forth, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit enthusiastically enjoyed the unrevealed beauty that was within their hearts. The creation was an exploding overflowing of delight in millions of manifestations of that that had been previously held in the privacy of God's joy. Just think of God's enjoyment as he made each flower, tree, animal, mountain, planet and star from the basic beauty of the engineering of subatomic matter to each arrangement of petal, bone structure, seed form and feather. Imagine how He engineered the body the swallow to bring forth it's special delight in swoops and flows of flight or brought into being the pirouettes of ballet of the hummingbird long before man thought of the beauty of dance. He was truly glorifying Himself, taking from the invisible of His nature and spewing out in such perfection of order His incalculable preciosness in the splendor and magnificence of the creation that we see around us today. The greatest beauty that any person has ever seen, no matter where or when or how far he had to travel to see it can have no source but God.
Yet as much as God loved the flow of perfection in each aspect of the creation He allowed for even it's own spoiling and destruction by the forming of something much closer to His heart. (Romans 8:19-22) God made man in His own image and likeness to share with Him the enjoyment of His own loving and exuberantly creative nature. God's nature is love and part of His plan was to create a being who could enjoy and relate to Him on a most intimate basis. There was one catch in this process as shared by Andrew Murray in his book "Two Covenants" (p.12) God proposed to make a man in His own image and likeness. The chief glory of God is that He has life in Himself; that He is independent of all else and owes what He is to Himself alone. If the image and likeness of God was not to be a mere name, and man was really to be like God in the power to make himself what he was to be he must needs have the power of free will and self-determination. This was the problem God had to solve in man's creation in His image. Man was to be a creature made by God, and yet he was to be, as far as a creature could be, like God, self-made
God gave man free will, the ability to choose what he wanted to do with his life as this highest manifestation of His creation was to be a fit companion to enjoy and share His glory with. God wanted man to make his own choice whether to follow and love God or to reject Him. There had to be consequences of disobedience and these consequences included the temporary spoiling of the pristine beauty of creation itself. God knew man would rebel, sin would enter the earth with all the pain this implied for God who loves the perfection of His glory. But still He made a way for those who want to walk with Him in the beauty of relationship He desires. Jesus, the lamb who was slain from the foundation of the World provided the way. The chief end of man is as the Westminister Shorter Catechism states is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
Throughout the Bible it is obvious that God made man like Himself that a opposed to the rest of creation, man might be a fit companion for God. Whether we look at how God related with Adam in the garden before the fall, and later His relationship with Enoch and Abraham, Moses, David and many others. Jesus who perfectly showed us the Father loved to be with people. The promises of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31:33-34 center on the relationship. First of all He would write His laws (His nature) on our hearts, He would be our God and we His people, All of us would know Him from the least to the greatest as God himself removed all barriers in forgiving our sins and iniquities. Finally we see the final event of future history is a marriage supper that fulfills Hoseas prophesy that "And it shall be, in that day," Says the LORD, "That you will call Me `My Husband,' And no longer call Me `My Master,' (Hosea 2:16, NKJV).
Relationship is primary though many people place greatest emphasis on God's demand for holiness and obedience even this is only a prerequisite for the depth of relationship God's desires. As the scripture states, "How can two walk together unless they be agreed" (Amos 3:3 The main reason for obedience and holiness is that we may be changed to be like Him to be fit companions. Even more, holiness and obedience is not possible for man apart from the deepest intimacy. Man can only come closer to bearing fruit that truly glorifies the Father out of the perfect deep communion with Christ. He must be the vine and we the vitally connected branches as apart from Him we can do nothing. (John 15:5) Deep abiding loving relationship is the means and the end of all things in God.
This kind of vital relationship is only possible as we are moved in the depth of our hearts to fall in love with God. Only as He becomes our greatest treasure can the connection to the vine be solid. This cannot just be an intellectual exercise. We must ask God to open our eyes, especially those of our understanding that we might begin to see the overwhelming beauty of His nature.
We must give ourselves over to the process of having our hearts captured by all that He is. Other wise our Christianity will become dull duty or a social game we get into to assuage our conscience or build our self esteem on the ambition for success in our ministry. We must see and experience Jesus Christ as the treasure that He really is, that our walk with Him may be growing delight in those things that are most beautiful, most precious, and most meaningful. He must become the treasure for which we desire to extravagantly spend everything in glorious adoration of His being.
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