The following is a quote from Robert Farrar Capon‘s book on the parables of Jesus…
The Gospel of grace must not be turned into a bait-and-switch offer. It is not one of those airline supersavers in which you read of a $59.00 fare to Orlando only to find, when you try to buy a ticket, that the… Read More
Are you familiar with the concept of a “come up?”
Quoting Urban Dictionary, it’s “A bargain, or a found item that is of value to the finder.”
Maclemore, in his hit song Thrift Shop, says, “I’m digging, I’m digging, I’m searching right through that luggage. One man’s trash, that’s another man’s come-up.”
Searching for and discovering treasure is something we can all relate to.
Some friends of mine recently found a 1920′s typewriter—fully functional and in excellent shape. They bought it and gave it to me for my birthday. It’s a great treasure!
The idea of a “come up” from a spiritual standpoint is interesting to think about…
You discover a treasure that takes you up to a whole new level of living and understanding—a treasure with far-reaching impact, both in this life and the life to come.
But actually, this isn’t how it works. You didn’t discover the treasure. The treasure found you.
This is the Gospel story: the announcement of the Good News of what God has done to reach us.
Hugh Montefiore, a Jewish biblical scholar, on what makes Christianity unique, said, “It is that God seeks us and God finds us.” The treasure found you.
In Jesus, God has come to us. God seeks and pursues until he finds us. He doesn’t give up or grow weary in pursuit.
General Lee, at the end of the Civil War, said of General Grant, “He just keeps coming.”
So it is with our God. He is relentless.
In Luke chapter 15, God is portrayed in a series of 3 parables as the pursuer (the shepherd seeking his lost sheep, the woman searching for her lost coin, and the father seeking his wayward son).
These parables remind us: we don’t discover the treasure. The treasure finds us.
I recently had conversations with a couple different guys who were surprised to find themselves in church. They said things like, “I shouldn’t be here—I should be in prison. I should be dead. The fact that I am still alive and here today is a miracle. The Man upstairs must be up to something.”
I love it! They are beginning to sense the relentless pursuit of our God…
The Treasure who finds us.
God reconciled everything to himself… this includes you who were once far away from God. He has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. —Colossians 1.20-22 NLT
