More Precious than Precious Stones

UV 2142/10000 More Precious than Precious Stones
And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
Malachi 3 v 17

The Lord of the armies of heaven fights fiercely for us as we belong to Him. We are His treasured possession that the enemy tries to take away from Him but in vain. We are His share, His precious inheritance. We are His crown jewels. He values us greatly as a man values diamonds. He evaluates each of us based firstly on our faith and secondly, on our character , thirdly, on our thoughts, words and deeds. We are however, jewels and diamonds being formed and not yet fully crystallised. He is still shaping us from within and without. We need to reflect the four C’s that pertain to any diamond- cut, colour, carat, clarity or how well our faith has cut our character to resemble Jesus, His most precious Son, our attitudes of heart and mind, the intensity of our passion and enthusiasm for the rule of love of Christ, the weight of our words and deeds acting in agreement with each other and in conformity with our beliefs and His word, the clarity of our vision and values of calmness, compassion, courage and creativity. Jesus during His earthly sojourn showed no interest in gold or jewels or diamonds. His focus was on people, turning people into living diamonds and jewels. He had the transformative impact on all He encountered, the wavering disciples as well as those who met him either by seeming accident or design to answer a heart-felt query or to heal an incurable ailment. He is even today a jewel former and transformer.
Once we are formed the Lord positions us on His person, the body of Christ to adorn and to shine for His glory. We share in the glory of God in Jesus. Just as the Lord God loves Jesus, He loves and cares deeply for each of us. Jesus though He is the Son of God and the only one at that, made Himself like a servant, many levels below His true and eternal status in order to enable those He chose to be spared the judgement of their shortcoming of the glory of God.

Every human being struggles to know if he or she is truly valued by anyone else. He also struggles to know to whom does He truly belong. He struggles to be able to do all that he wants to do and accomplish in this world. Jesus ends this struggle of mankind for belongingness, for esteem and for competence. We belong to Jesus. He is ours and we are His. His attitude towards us is one not of relative love that is based on performance or circumstances or predilections but one of absolute, eternal, perfect, complete love. He esteems us so much that He laid down His life for each of us. In a sense, He considers us better than diamonds and lifeless precious stones for imbued with the same power that sustained Him and resurrected Him from death, we are now competent to do all that He wants us to do. We are not dead jewels but living diamonds, ,intended to serve Him, emblazoned for His glory by His grace. Our attitude, too, towards our fellow humans of whatever background, hue or view should be that he or she is more precious than precious stones. We ought not to have an utilitarian or mercenary view of people, considering in what we can benefit or exploit the relationship. People have an infinite value of and in themselves.

Prateep V Philip