Philippians 3:7-9, NIV
“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.\”
On January 26, 1905, the superintendent of the Cullinan mine, in South Africa, Frederick Wells, came upon a reflection in the dirt. He picked up the otherwise dull stone, nearly four inches long, and, almost accidentally, discovered the largest diamond ever found. This amazing stone turned out to be a perfectly clear, colourless diamond weighing 3,106 carats.
Taking the name of the owner of the mine, the Cullinan diamond was sold to the Transvaal government for £150,000, with the finder of the stone, Frederick Wells, receiving 3,500 pounds as a reward for the precious discovery – a huge sum back in 1905! This enormous diamond was cut into several exquisite diamonds, most of which now adorn the Crown Jewels of England, having been presented to King Edward the Seventh as a 66th birthday present.
The value of the Cullinan diamonds would today be almost beyond price. They are the sort of treasures that people can only dream of. Yet even if it were possible for you to buy and own such amazing treasures, they would be totally valueless to you at the moment you stopped breathing at the end of your days! At that moment the value to you of everything you have and own reduces to zero and will become totally irrelevant! At that point the only treasure that will be of any interest or value to you, will be that which you can take with you beyond the grave.
And the only treasure that we can own in this life which is of value to us in the next, is our relationship with Jesus. He is the ultimate treasure, the utterly precious One. The One who left the riches of Heaven’s glory to show us the way to the Father. It is beyond belief to me how the majority of the world will spend all their time and energies in the acquisition of treasures that are only of value while we have life and breath, and will spend virtually nothing on discovering the surpassing greatness of Christ Jesus.
Paul got his sense of values exactly in the right perspective. What would be the point of owning the Cullinan diamond, he would have said today, if it became the focus of your existence and you took your eyes off Christ. For it is only those who are found in Him that will have any eternal treasure – everything else is rubbish by comparison. Yes, we can own and appreciate the things of this world while we are here, but let’s never forget that they are irrelevant when we stand before God at the end of time. If Jesus is not the treasure in our heart then, we will bewail the years when we sought earthly treasure at the expense of Heavenly blessing.
Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for all the wonderful things you have created in this world for us to have and to enjoy. But help me Lord, never to value them more highly than I should and to take my focus off Jesus, the only treasure that is valuable in this world and the next. In His Name, Amen.
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