The Treasure Worth Everything
Before you even walked into church, you made a hundred little decisions. Snooze or rise. Check your phone or pray first. Healthy breakfast or drive-thru. Snap at your spouse or bite your tongue.
Every single decision was a trade-off—you gave up one thing to do another.
The truth is, we're all traders. We trade our time for money, our energy for relationships, our comfort for discipline (or more often, our discipline for comfort). This is the human condition: constantly exchanging one thing for another, betting that what we receive will be worth more than what we give up.
Here's the problem: we're terrible at evaluating what things are actually worth. We consistently make trades that don't make sense, exchanging things that could last forever for things that might not even be here next Tuesday.
Two Stories, One Truth
In Matthew 13, Jesus tells two brief parables that cut straight to the heart of how we should evaluate everything in our lives.
First, there's a day laborer plowing someone else's field. It's Thursday afternoon, it's hot, his back hurts, and this is not glamorous work. Suddenly, his plow hits something. Not a rock—a buried treasure. In first-century Palestine, people buried their valuables when war or bandits threatened. Many died before retrieving what they'd hidden, leaving fortunes buried and forgotten.
This laborer opens the container and finds gold, silver, maybe jewels—enough wealth to change his entire future and his children's lives. What does he do? He reburies it, goes home, and sells everything he owns to buy that field.
The second story features a merchant who deals in fine pearls—the most valuable commodity in the ancient world. He's spent his career searching, examining thousands of pearls, but there's an ache in his soul. He knows there's one perfect pearl out there somewhere, and he hasn't found it yet. Until one day, he sees it. The pearl that makes every other pearl look like plastic. And he knows immediately: the search is over. So he liquidates his entire inventory to buy it.
The Exchange Rate of Eternity
Notice what both men do: they sell everything. Not most things. Not 80%. Everything.
The laborer sells his plow, his goat, his furniture. The merchant sells his ships, his inventory, his other pearls. They hold nothing back.
Why? Because they understand the exchange rate. They're not giving up treasure to get treasure. They're giving up trash to get treasure.
This is what the kingdom of God is like. Following Jesus isn't adding Him to your life like another item on the calendar. It's not giving God Sundays and maybe praying before some meals. The kingdom demands everything.
But here's what we can't miss: the laborer sells everything "in his joy." He's not crying about it. He's not dragging his feet. He's running, laughing, so excited he can barely contain himself.
When you truly see the value of Jesus—of knowing God, having your sins forgiven, being adopted into His family, having eternal life—giving up everything doesn't feel like loss. It feels like liberation.
Jim Elliott, the missionary killed trying to reach an unreached tribe, wrote in his journal: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
That's kingdom math. That's the logic of the gospel.
The Vision Problem
If the kingdom is this valuable, if Jesus is this good, why do we struggle so much to let go of our stuff? Why do we clutch our money, comfort, control, and reputation like they're worth dying for?
We have a vision problem. We're nearsighted.
Imagine a rope stretching from your hand, out the door, around the globe, to the edges of the universe, expanding forever. That rope represents your existence—you don't cease to exist at death. You're an eternal being who will exist forever somewhere.
Now take the first two millimeters of that rope and paint it red. That tiny section represents your life on earth—maybe 70 or 80 years.
The rest of the rope—the infinite rope stretching into eternity—is where you'll spend the overwhelming majority of your existence.
Here's the insanity: we spend 100% of our mental energy obsessing over the little red section. We lie awake worrying about our 401(k)s, what people think of us, whether we'll get that promotion, if the house is big enough. We're killing ourselves to make the red section comfortable while completely ignoring the millions of miles that follow.
In a hundred years, nobody will remember your name or care what car you drove, how big your house was, or how many followers you had on Instagram. But in a hundred years, you will still be alive—fully conscious, fully you. And you'll either be in the presence of God, enjoying the treasure, or you'll be in outer darkness, clutching sand while the tide comes in.
Three Tests of Your Treasure
How do you know what you really value? Three tests reveal where your treasure truly lies:
The Anxiety Test: What makes you anxious reveals what you're treasuring. If a 10% drop in the stock market correlates with a 10% drop in your joy, your treasure is in the market, not in God. If your car getting scratched ruins your week, your treasure is in your stuff.
The Generosity Test: If you truly believe the kingdom is more valuable than money, you'll be radically generous. You won't just tip God with whatever's left over after funding your lifestyle. You'll look for ways to move assets from the temporary column to the eternal column.
The Upgrade Test: We live in a culture always chasing more—bigger house, nicer car, latest phone. But if you've found the best pearl, why are you mesmerized by plastic beads? When was the last time you downgraded your lifestyle to upgrade your giving or availability to serve?
The Only Currency That Matters
The currency in God's kingdom isn't cash—it's surrender. You trade your independence for His lordship, your self-righteousness for His righteousness, your pride for grace.
The reason many haven't "bought the field" isn't that they're too poor; it's that they're too rich in their own eyes, clutching self-righteousness and control, saying, "God, I want the kingdom, but I want to keep my stuff too."
But God doesn't want your money. He wants you.
When you see what Christ gave up to purchase you—when you see that He sold everything to buy the field containing you—it transforms how you see Him. You don't serve to earn love. You already have His love. You serve because you've been overwhelmed by it.
The treasure is there. Stop plowing and start digging. Stop searching—you've found Him. The only question is: will you make the trade?
Every single decision was a trade-off—you gave up one thing to do another.
The truth is, we're all traders. We trade our time for money, our energy for relationships, our comfort for discipline (or more often, our discipline for comfort). This is the human condition: constantly exchanging one thing for another, betting that what we receive will be worth more than what we give up.
Here's the problem: we're terrible at evaluating what things are actually worth. We consistently make trades that don't make sense, exchanging things that could last forever for things that might not even be here next Tuesday.
Two Stories, One Truth
In Matthew 13, Jesus tells two brief parables that cut straight to the heart of how we should evaluate everything in our lives.
First, there's a day laborer plowing someone else's field. It's Thursday afternoon, it's hot, his back hurts, and this is not glamorous work. Suddenly, his plow hits something. Not a rock—a buried treasure. In first-century Palestine, people buried their valuables when war or bandits threatened. Many died before retrieving what they'd hidden, leaving fortunes buried and forgotten.
This laborer opens the container and finds gold, silver, maybe jewels—enough wealth to change his entire future and his children's lives. What does he do? He reburies it, goes home, and sells everything he owns to buy that field.
The second story features a merchant who deals in fine pearls—the most valuable commodity in the ancient world. He's spent his career searching, examining thousands of pearls, but there's an ache in his soul. He knows there's one perfect pearl out there somewhere, and he hasn't found it yet. Until one day, he sees it. The pearl that makes every other pearl look like plastic. And he knows immediately: the search is over. So he liquidates his entire inventory to buy it.
The Exchange Rate of Eternity
Notice what both men do: they sell everything. Not most things. Not 80%. Everything.
The laborer sells his plow, his goat, his furniture. The merchant sells his ships, his inventory, his other pearls. They hold nothing back.
Why? Because they understand the exchange rate. They're not giving up treasure to get treasure. They're giving up trash to get treasure.
This is what the kingdom of God is like. Following Jesus isn't adding Him to your life like another item on the calendar. It's not giving God Sundays and maybe praying before some meals. The kingdom demands everything.
But here's what we can't miss: the laborer sells everything "in his joy." He's not crying about it. He's not dragging his feet. He's running, laughing, so excited he can barely contain himself.
When you truly see the value of Jesus—of knowing God, having your sins forgiven, being adopted into His family, having eternal life—giving up everything doesn't feel like loss. It feels like liberation.
Jim Elliott, the missionary killed trying to reach an unreached tribe, wrote in his journal: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
That's kingdom math. That's the logic of the gospel.
The Vision Problem
If the kingdom is this valuable, if Jesus is this good, why do we struggle so much to let go of our stuff? Why do we clutch our money, comfort, control, and reputation like they're worth dying for?
We have a vision problem. We're nearsighted.
Imagine a rope stretching from your hand, out the door, around the globe, to the edges of the universe, expanding forever. That rope represents your existence—you don't cease to exist at death. You're an eternal being who will exist forever somewhere.
Now take the first two millimeters of that rope and paint it red. That tiny section represents your life on earth—maybe 70 or 80 years.
The rest of the rope—the infinite rope stretching into eternity—is where you'll spend the overwhelming majority of your existence.
Here's the insanity: we spend 100% of our mental energy obsessing over the little red section. We lie awake worrying about our 401(k)s, what people think of us, whether we'll get that promotion, if the house is big enough. We're killing ourselves to make the red section comfortable while completely ignoring the millions of miles that follow.
In a hundred years, nobody will remember your name or care what car you drove, how big your house was, or how many followers you had on Instagram. But in a hundred years, you will still be alive—fully conscious, fully you. And you'll either be in the presence of God, enjoying the treasure, or you'll be in outer darkness, clutching sand while the tide comes in.
Three Tests of Your Treasure
How do you know what you really value? Three tests reveal where your treasure truly lies:
The Anxiety Test: What makes you anxious reveals what you're treasuring. If a 10% drop in the stock market correlates with a 10% drop in your joy, your treasure is in the market, not in God. If your car getting scratched ruins your week, your treasure is in your stuff.
The Generosity Test: If you truly believe the kingdom is more valuable than money, you'll be radically generous. You won't just tip God with whatever's left over after funding your lifestyle. You'll look for ways to move assets from the temporary column to the eternal column.
The Upgrade Test: We live in a culture always chasing more—bigger house, nicer car, latest phone. But if you've found the best pearl, why are you mesmerized by plastic beads? When was the last time you downgraded your lifestyle to upgrade your giving or availability to serve?
The Only Currency That Matters
The currency in God's kingdom isn't cash—it's surrender. You trade your independence for His lordship, your self-righteousness for His righteousness, your pride for grace.
The reason many haven't "bought the field" isn't that they're too poor; it's that they're too rich in their own eyes, clutching self-righteousness and control, saying, "God, I want the kingdom, but I want to keep my stuff too."
But God doesn't want your money. He wants you.
When you see what Christ gave up to purchase you—when you see that He sold everything to buy the field containing you—it transforms how you see Him. You don't serve to earn love. You already have His love. You serve because you've been overwhelmed by it.
The treasure is there. Stop plowing and start digging. Stop searching—you've found Him. The only question is: will you make the trade?
Recent
Archive
2026
2025
March
June
October