Day: 35

From King to Treasure

“Jesus said to him, ‘If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’”

Matthew 19:21 (ASV)

The Climb:

Once we give our lives to Christ, we find ourselves on a journey up the mountain of faith.

There is a far off land we are journeying towards that we will reach in the next life; but right now, I’m speaking of our earthly journey.

When we first begin to ascend the mountain, we have a backpack full of junk from our old life.

The backpack is full of bad habits, old ways of living and interacting with others, self-centeredness, and tons of other “deadweight.” Those things are almost benign though, compared to the idols and false treasure (money, romance, sex, power, popularity, achievement, etc.) that the backpack also holds.

Emptying Your Backpack

While it’s easy to see that we need to drop off our selfishness, immorality, and other bad habits, most of us are convinced that we will need our false treasure and idols for the long climb ahead. Especially since they have served us so well up to the point of the climb.

But, be assured though, we must empty all the contents of our backpack if we are ever to reach the top of the mountain. Of all the things we carry, the heaviest and last thing we drop is the false treasure and idols.

Honestly, we’ve lived off our idols for so long that we don’t even realize they’re in our pack! When we do realize they’re there, we often try to merge them into our life so we can keep them and God.

But the climb is steep and the journey long. As you ascend, these things will become heavier and heavier.

Along our climb up the mountain, the trail guide will be with you. At times, He will whisper in your ear: “turn left,” “turn right,” “let go of that idol or treasure.”

Learning to obey His suggestions and commands is critical. In fact, it is one of the biggest lessons we need to learn as we climb the mountain.

We must learn to listen and obey because the climb is treacherous. Falls can be deadly. Our trail guide knows all the secret paths up the mountain, including how to ascend those sheer vertical cliffs of smooth granite. He will direct you to every hand and toehold so that tied to Him, you can go where few others can.

World Class Climbing

There comes a point in our climb that our backpack is fairly empty. We have thrown away most of our old ways, bad habits, and false treasures. More importantly, we have learned to obey the trail guide’s suggestions and commands.

At this stage, the climber is one-in-a-hundred among the climbing community. It often takes decades to get to the point where one can empty his pack of false treasure and lives as a faithful and obedient subject to his King.

Those in the climbing community will look at this stage of growth and rightfully applaud it. When you reach it, you may feel that you’ve reached the highest skill-level of climbing.

At this point, the climber is way up the mountain and should be rightfully proud of their ascent. They should stop and look around at the stunning view and take in the clean air on their perch.

But, even at this stage, the climber has not reached the top. It is a false summit; there is one last sheer wall of granite above them. This is the one that looks impossible; the smoothness of the rock and lack of handholds keeps most climbers from the final ascent.

The Treasure

Paradoxically, they can’t accomplish the final ascent until they fill their pack back up. However, this time it must be filled with a new treasure.

This treasure cannot be found down in the valley. It is found during the climb.  You see, during our climb, we reach points where we acutely feel the danger. One wrong move and we could slip and fall, seemingly to our doom. The imprisoned and tortured believer is very familiar with these moments but they apply to all of us.

It is in our greatest periods of pain and suffering that we are forced to let go of all our idols and false treasure, crying out with everything, “God save me.”

These moments give us our greatest growth. For then, we realize that the only true source of life, the only thing that will keep us glued to the mountain wall, is Jesus.

He is the true treasure. We must fill our backpack with Him to ascend to the top of the mountain.

We let go of our false treasure and fill our pack with Him repeatedly during our climb. The world and its toys, and even its relationships must all slip away or at least come way down in importance until we find that He is our all and our very life.

This last stage of transformation in your walk with Jesus, from living with Jesus as King to living with Jesus as your highest treasure, is very subtle. Nevertheless, this is the end of the spiritual journey that the Lord Jesus is taking you on.

I say this confidently because I’ve seen this journey laid out in the scriptures, and in my own life and heart.

A Really Bad Deal

Most poignantly for me, I’ve seen it in the lives of the martyrs. They left their markers along the trail for me, showing me how to ascend.

These are the same markers I took so long to see and understand.

Finally, though, I began to see them. I saw their repeated encounters with the proverbial fork in the road where they were forced to make a decision. To either give up on Jesus or to let go of the treasures they were threatened with losing.

As I’ve said, the martyr is almost always given a chance to live if they will only turn away from Jesus.

The martyr rejects this offer because all his false treasures, including his own life, have already been weighed, placed on the altar, and released.

The assassin’s offer to trade a few more minutes (figuratively) of earthly life in return for their greatest treasure (Jesus, His presence, and his future life with Him), is a really bad deal.

So the machete comes down, the knife begins its work, and the bullet is released from its casing.

The martyr stands at the door to the next life is looking back at waving us on.  Their message is not to die like them but to live like them. To let go of all your false treasure and idols and make Jesus your greatest treasure.

We Can Only Visit

This is the end of the climb and where the Lord is taking you. The world’s greatest climbers, the persecuted and the martyrs, showed me how to get there.

Unfortunately, even they can’t teach me how to live there permanently.

It’s merely a place I get to visit from time to time at the top of the mountain. I am never there long enough to build a home, but the one who owns the mountain has a cabin where I can find rest and life for a respite.

When I make it to that highland, I always hear a song carried on the wind from the martyrs that have gone before me, urging me on:

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise. Thou, mine Inheritance, now and always. Thou and Thou only, first in my heart. High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

My friend, study the persecuted and the martyrs. They are not perfect, but they can show you the way to the top of the mountain. I urge you to ask the Lord to lead you to this place.

The climb will be steep, and the deadweight in your backpack will have to be dropped off along the way, but the air there is very clean, clear, and the view stunning.

There is a tree there whose shade brings relief from life’s withering sun and a stream that never stops flowing. Always refreshed from the rains that fall from a throne far away, it brings life to everything it touches. As you taste the living water of that stream, you will find the relief and peace that you have so desperately longed for.

In this sacred place, you will hear the whispered voice of the martyr and find, even if fleetingly, all the true riches of heaven. . . in the presence of the Lord.

For Further Reading:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.  And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

Romans 8:26-28 (ESV)

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

Ephesians 6:10-11 (ESV)

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people.”

1 Timothy 2:1 (ESV)

“The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.”

Psalm 34:15-17 (ESV)

“And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.”

1 John 5:14-15 (ESV)

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.  Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.”

James 5:16-18 (ESV)

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