The Treasure that Costs Everything to Keep

How I discovered a hidden revelation that changed my life

Fourteen years ago, alone in my bedroom in prayer, I discovered one of the greatest gifts of my life.

It involved a piece of Scripture that was designed to meet my heart at that very point in time.

The gravity of this otherwise mundane moment suggests it was divinely appointed, and not drummed up by my merely curious mind. Simply browsing text has very limited ability to change a life in an instant. And yet that is the effect it had. Perhaps it is your moment too.

I had heard about the Epistle to the Ephesians and how its truths could transform a life searching for an identity. Often referred to as the “Alps of the New Testament”, I was not disappointed in the grandeur of this letter written to an Ancient Greek audience.

Many of its passages spoke directly into my hungry, searching soul, but there was one that remains quite special to me.

“Having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance.” (Ephesians 1:14)

I was already a believer, but I had no idea I was in possession of a “guarantee”.

The original Greek word for ‘guarantee’ is arrabōn, which means a down payment, deposit, or the first installment of a full inheritance.

As a young person with conflicted loyalties and a patchy history of following God, I discovered that I had nevertheless received a massive down payment into my spiritual account.

And that down payment is the Spirit of God Himself.

This stunning revelation was foreshadowed several verses earlier by the Apostle Paul when he declared we have been “blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” (Eph 1:3)

Unsurprisingly, the original Greek for every, means every. As in, every possible spiritual blessing had already been given to those who believe. This is a statement so bold it requires no small measure of faith to appreciate.

I didn’t know it then, but looking back now, I do see that Jesus provided the user’s manual for stewarding this monumental truth, once it had been unearthed by the believer. It was contained in his parable of the “Treasure in the Field”.

“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.” (Matthew 13:44)

As it turned out, in my very early twenties, having been a believer for most of my life, I was discovering my true spiritual wealth for the first time.

I had accidentally stumbled upon a hidden treasure that now required something from me to keep it. In fact, it required everything of me. More than scholarly knowledge impressing my mind, my heart actually leapt at this revelation and the tangible presence of God met me there in my bedroom.

It soon became apparent to me that much of what I had built my life around had to be let go, so that I could take possession of the thing that held infinitely more value - the Kingdom of God, and the Spirit of the King Himself.

That led me on a journey of fourteen years around the world that, up until this point, still informs how I live, think, and act.

I hope to get some of that down in writing, and hopefully it will be encouraging to you too.

Yours,

Luke