Heart Tracks - Treasures

"And since we are His children, we will share His treasures - for everything God gives to His Son, Christ, is ours, too. But if we are to share His glory, we must also share His suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will give us later." Romans 8:17-18...."No despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved (and loves) us." Romans 8:37

I heard Beth Moore teach recently on John 10:10 and Jesus' well known words concerning His coming to us that we "might have life in abundance." That is a much beloved Scripture for me, and has been most of my walk with Him. Yet it's meaning has changed radically since His Spirit first spoke it to my heart. So much of my idea of abundance had to do with it being defined in earthly, fleshly terms. It once meant having a good, blessing filled life, and it does. But the Father has realigned my thinking as to what a good, blessing filled life really is. His idea and my flesh's are very, very far apart.

In the wonderful movie, "The Fellowship of the Ring," Bilbo tells his nephew Frodo something on the order of, "It's a dangerous thing to step out of your door." Hobbits loved their homes and filled them with every kind of comfort. Almost all of them had no desire to leave either their homes or the shire in which they were found. We who say we follow Him are far too much like them. For to follow Him is to embark, as did Frodo, on a journey that will be filled with danger, challenges, and no small amount of suffering. We look for vacations and holidays. Christ leads us to places that look a lot like Tolkien's Mordor, a place of darkness, warfare, and yes, suffering. He leads us to the cross. His cross, and now, ours as well.

We all believe there are treasures in Christ, but we never think of suffering as being one of them. Our chief response in any suffering is for us to beg God to get us out, to end it, make it go away. We're not much interested in anything He may speak to us there. To have the treasures in Christ that He wishes to reveal to us in that place. Anyone who has clung to Him in those places knows that it was there that they came to know more of Him than they could ever have discovered in the bright sunshine. God approached Moses covered in deep darkness, and though the Israelites fled at the sight of it, Moses entered in.....and found it was exactly where God was. In the blackest darkness, He is still the greatest light. And the deepest darkness is powerless to put out that light. It will be in the darkness that we discover that "all these things," all the things that the enemy can assault us with, cannot keep us from the overwhelming victory that is ours in Christ. When we walk through hell we must never stop, but keep on walking through it all with Him. He has conquered it. In and with Him, we do, we have as well.

Jesus said that where our treasure is, there our hearts will be. Where and what is your true treasure? In the gifts, or in the Giver? Do we love most that which glitters and draws our flesh to itself, or, do we love Him whose light shines in the deepest darkness, and we will brave that darkness just to be with Him? And so find that its there that the true Treasure dwells, that real life in abundance is found. In one way or another, we're all treasure hunters. Where is your hunt leading you?

Blessings,
Pastor O