Nothing is more valuable to God than His children, which are in the same significance as Himself, giving us His Son as He did! There’s no doubt that they mean more to Him than the angels, for it was for those in Christ that He made them “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” The Christian is why God created and sent His Son. It’s all for them in their service and fellowship with Him. Shouldn’t any child be as valuable to their father? Being a child of God is the most unique and valuable blessing in Him, as valuable to Him as His Son, Whom He gave; and is why the Father gave His Son instead of Himself, because He wanted to give what meant the most to Him.
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Loving Lapidary
Our Great High Priest regards us a valuable—because His eyes have rested on us—beautiful and worthy of His admiration. In another connection we have the same principle. The Bridegroom says to her who bewails that she is black (e.g. sorry for the sinfulness—NC), “Thou art all fair, My love (says Jesus—NC)”; and it is at the time when she in conscious of her blackness that she is told so. The German philosopher said the more that he knew of men the more he liked dogs: probably we all have such feelings at times.
The more we know of one another and ourselves the more marvelous does that love seem which could not only suffer for us, but could set such a value upon us. How to account for it? Who can? Who can explain love and the ways of life? When the mother of the Gracchi said (the Gracchi were Roman brothers who tried to reform Rome's social and political structure to help the lower classes—NC), in the 2nd century BCE, “These are my real jewels,” pointing to her children, did she think them valuable because she had suffered and labored for them, or because it really gave her pleasure to look upon them—or both?
Gems are the most valuable and beautiful things the earth contains. As valuable as the rare metals, but are more beautiful; as beautiful as the flowers, and they are more durable. But, after all, what are they, what is their origin? There is a well-known passage is a modern writer where he traces the course of the common mud or slime, composed of clay is gradually developed into a sapphire, the sand into an opal, the soot into a diamond; and this is not mere poetry but common scientific fact.
The diamond is indeed “crystallized carbon,” glorified-soot. It is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. How have they been thus transformed so that they adorn the king’s crown, the queen’s coronet, and the high priest’s breastplate? By the power of the Most High working mysteriously by means of heat and flood, of pressure, of darkness and light. When picked up from the dust the work is not yet done: they have to pass through the discipline of cutting and grinding. The lapidary bends over them on the revolving lathe and makes them scream as he touches them here and there. He hurts them a good deal, but he will not harm them. They will shine with a more beauteous luster presently.
What a sense of security this gives! Those who possess gems protect them with the greatest care. The gem may perhaps be in a poor environment, like the rich ruby which the Russian Peter (the Great—NC) took from his pocket in a piece of crumbled paper and handed it to King William; or unpolished as the Kohinoor (one of the largest cut diamonds in the world—NC), before the Iron Duke took it to his mistress he took it to the lapidary to be cut and ground. It is too valuable to be uncared for. The Duke would sit by, never letting the gem out of his sight till a new facet was cut, and then would carefully wrap it up in a silk handkerchief and take it away till the morrow.
Even such a care protects, even such a value is set upon the children of God. The Heavenly Lapidary bends over the crude misshapen stones as they move on the revolving wheel of life, and He touches them with many a sharp instrument and polishes them with their own dust. But He will neither harm them Himself nor let anyone else do so; and He says, “They shall be Mine in that day when I make up My jewels” (Mal 3:17).
—J C Bayley
MJS daily devotional excerpt for May 31
“Two things mark spiritual growth; one is a deeper sense of the sinful old nature, the other is a greater longing after the Lord Jesus Christ. The sinfulness is discovered and felt as the power of the Holy Spirit increases; for many a thought and act passes without pain to the conscience where the Lord Jesus is less before the soul, which will be refused and condemned as the knowledge of the Lord increases in spiritual power within.” - James Butler Stoney (1814-1897)
