You Are A Valuable Treasure

They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. — Malachi 3:17

So the "they" of this text are those who have revered and feared God. It is a group of people who have heard, discerned, and acted in obedience to God. So they are the ones whose names and actions are written in the Book of Remembrance. And here God calls them by a unique designation — his "treasured possession." This is terminology is used a few times in the Old Testament to describe how God values the people of God. One notable occurrence is at Mt. Sinai, where God stated:

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples. — Exodus 19:5

So the people here knew this designation.

Now, if we skip ahead into the New Testament, we have a similar illusion to this designation. It's found in Luke 15. Jesus tells three parables. The parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son. The driving point of these stories was to describe God's relentless search for his treasured possessions — you and me. Three times and in three ways, Jesus communicates the extent to which God will go to search for the thing he treasures. But it's the final parable that captures the point of the text in Malachi because it describes the extent to which a father will go to "spare a son who serves him."

And yet there is this irony in Luke 15 because the parable of the Lost Son is about a son who was spared. Yet the story was told by a Son the Father did not spare. Yet because this Son, Jesus, was not spared, we were spared, which doubles down on the extent to which God values us as his treasured possession.

So know that there will always be days you will not see the treasure you are. There will also be days you will wonder if God treasures you. But we shouldn't question this. God sees great treasure in his people. He has gone to great extents to demonstrate this. In fact, he already did. He treasures you so much that he bought your redemption with the thing the Heavenly Father treasures most — his own Son. So that means you are pretty valuable to him, but he wants us to believe this and obey him.

ASK THIS: God treasures you. But do you realize and receive the treasure you are to him?

DO THIS: Accept the truth. You are his treasured possession.

PRAY THIS: God, I will be obedient because I know you love me, and for no other reason.

PLAY THIS: How He Loves.