The Clarity of the Kingdom.

Jesus gave us two parables which illustrate the stance of the heart which leads to becoming a Follower, an Apprentice, and ultimately, a Lover of His!  They also illustrate what He meant when He said the teacher, the ‘scribe,’ the scholar of the Kingdom teaches from the realities of life as we know it, who brings out of the “storeroom” of the soul “new treasures as well as old” {13:52}.

First, He said in Matthew 13:44, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.  When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”  Secondly, He said in v. 45, “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.  When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it,” v. 46.

These two little parables— stories ‘thrown down’ beside life: the temporal to illustrate the eternal, the physical to illuminate the spiritual— perfectly express the stance of a man or woman’s heart who chooses Life in the Kingdom of God alongside the Son of God.  As Dallas Willard so perfectly stated, “The sense of the goodness to be achieved by this choice, of the opportunity” which “may be missed, the love for the value discovered, the” passion and “joy over it all, is exactly the same as it was for those who were drawn to Jesus in those long-ago days when He” walked among us in flesh, blood, and bones.  It’s also the stance of the soul from which discipleship can be clearly chosen this very day.

Now, put the often feared ‘cost of discipleship’ in light of these two parables.  You think the businessman who found the great pearl was sweating over its cost?  What about the poor laborer who found the “treasure hidden in the field”?  In our day it might be oil or natural gas, but what if it were gold, silver, precious stones buried there by an invading army?  Does it look like he was worried about its cost?  The only thing these cats were sweating— the one thing consuming their consciousness— was whether they could ‘get the deal done’!  Now that is the soul of a Disciple!

No one goes sadly {‘Oh woe is me’}, reluctantly {‘Aagghh, I don’t know why I did this’}, fearfully into apprenticeship with the Lord Jesus Christ.  As the God-Man Himself said, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God” {Lk. 9:62}.  Nobody goes in bemoaning the cost.  Serious Students understand the opportunity and its eternal ramifications.  And one of the things which has obscured the Path of Discipleship in our post-modern Christian circles is this very idea: it will be incredibly difficult and will most certainly ruin what you call ‘your life.’

The entire point of these two parables— along with Jesus’ straight shot in Luke 14:26-27 that those who come to him must ‘hate’ their families, even their own lives, carry their cross and follow in His footsteps— is as long as we think anything may be more valuable than intimacy with Him under His rule and reign we cannot learn from Him or His Spirit.

Counting the cost is to bring us to the point of clarity and decision.  To help us see with the eyes of Eternity, from an eternal perspective.  Counting the cost is precisely what the man with the pearl and the hidden treasure did.  Out of it came joy, passion, and decision!  It’s joy and decision which are the outcomes of the cost-counting.

The passage in Luke, just like the parables, is about clarity.  It’s not about misery, or some incredibly dreadful price one must pay to be Jesus’ Apprentice.  There’s no such thing as a dreadful price for the ‘pearl’ of the Kingdom.  And “unless we see clearly the superiority of what we receive as His students over every other thing that might” possibly be valued in this life we cannot succeed in following His footsteps.  This stance of the soul, the surrender of the human heart, to Jesus’ love, mercy, rule, authority and dominion, is the single greatest key to drawing on the resources of His Kingdom!

HJC	Ric Webb  |  Shepherd Heart’s Journey Community 9621 Tall Timber Blvd. |  Little Rock, AR 72204 t +1.501.455.0296
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