I've got something that may shake your world up, but in a good way. It did that for me. Below this video is the written version of what I share with you from my studio.
“…that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the KNOWLEDGE of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of HIS INHERITANCE in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe,…”
You’ve most likely read this many times, but today for me, I had a sense of God’s heart for you (and me) like never before. For starters, I didn’t understand the part about HIS INHERITANCE being IN US.
How could we be an inheritance for God?
Just a few verses earlier Paul clearly talks about the Holy Spirit being the guarantee of OUR INHERITANCE. That I can understand, but the saints being HIS INHERITANCE???
But Moses says in Deuteronomy 4:20… “But the LORD has taken you… to be His people, an inheritance, as you are this day.” Psalm 33:12 says “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, The people He has chosen as His own inheritance.”
So, we are in fact HIS inheritance. And Paul gets quite descriptive… Instead of just saying that we are His inheritance, he describes us as “the riches (extraordinary value) of the glory (splendor, magnificence and manifested excellence) of His inheritance”
An inheritance of such great value that He sent His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish.
You might be thinking, how could God see such value in you? After all, you know you. You know all your faults and foibles.
But God sees something different. Please allow me to give a couple grossly inadequate metaphors to hopefully enlarge your understanding.
I live in Florida now, but when my father was born in 1916, Florida beachfront and coastal property was largely considered remote, mosquito-infested, and of very low value or nearly worthless because it lacked road access, bridges, and basic livability.
But developers saw something different. They saw potential. They saw what it could become and the work of transformation began. Now, only the very wealthy can buy that same property.
Secondly, take a walk in the countryside past a Norway spruce and perhaps a maple tree. The average person may notice the leaves and color, but a master craftsman sees how many Stradivarius violins are inside that tree, waiting to be transformed into the instrument that will bring joy and delight to the master.
Do you remember this passage in Matthew 13… “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
The hidden treasure in the field is how God sees us… (the riches and glory of His inheritance). In Exodus 19:5 God describes us this way “…you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people…”. In Deuteronomy 7:6 we read, “The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples…”
We are the treasure the man was seeking.
In the parable of the pearl of great price, the merchant is actively seeking. Compare that to Jesus’ own words… “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10)
This merchant that Jesus describes, discovers something of such great value that he “sold all the he had and bought it”.
Now consider Jesus… Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8:9 “Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.” This is not a financial transaction. The richness Paul is describing is what we become when we fully recover who we are in Christ and discover our true identity and worth. It is immeasurable!
And ultimately Paul reminds us in Acts 20:28 that we were “purchased with His own blood”.
You and I are the hidden treasure in the field. You and I are the pearl of great price. We are the undervalued land and the tree most people don’t notice, but God has great hopes for His calling upon your life. He knows what He wills to do in and for you.
That’s why Paul prays that God would give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of our understanding being enlightened so that we might KNOW the incredible hope He has for us to walk in and fulfill His great calling on our life.
This morning, I became acutely aware of His Hope in and for you, and He put some of that hope in me – for you.
As you know, the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him (Psalm 25:14) and He has given me many secrets to share with the body of Christ.
I found myself aching for the people of God to truly know the hope of His calling and to understand we are His great treasure.
Sometimes the hope we need to carry us through the hard times, the times when we have more questions than answers, more doubts than certainties, more fears than faith, needs something to pin its hopes on.
God promises, but yet we often want a sign or something to reduce our sense of risk.
That’s why the Jesus School of Business exists… to help people see how indeed it is possible to step fully into their calling and destiny, be that marketplace success or ministry initiatives. It provides the insights and knowhow so many desire but have not found in the worldly systems being proffered by so many these days.
Paul concludes by speaking of the exceeding greatness of His Power toward us. My goal is to not only point you towards His power, but help you fully connect to that effectual power in such a way as to enable you to confidently take hold of that for which you were apprehended (Philippians 3:13).
My calling is to leverage my abilities and accumulated authority on your behalf. If you’re in the Jesus School of Business, you are my assignment and I can hardly wait to assist you in stepping fully into your destiny and succeeding in the thing God called you to.
If this resonates with you in any way, I invite you to join me on the journey. Visit https://jesusschoolofbusiness.com/enroll to catch the replays of last week’s two Masterclasses. We have a special offer that extends until midnight tomorrow night.
Next month in the school, I will be teaching the unspoken reality that seeing precedes believing. I don’t mean seeing in the sense of physical reality.
I mean seeing as in the “Aha” moment when the light comes on, and suddenly you see (understand) what had evaded your understanding before. And because you now “see”, you believe.
And because you now truly believe, your words (which according to James) steer your course in a new direction which ultimately leads you to actions that produce the results you’ve been hoping and praying for all along.
It’s part of the Ultimate Success Framework and I can hardly wait to open this up all through September.
Meantime, our August teaching focuses on God’s 7 Kingdom Designs for business and highlights as an example, the tree as the most accurate and perfect business model for us to learn from.
Friend, I am praying for you today to discover more deeply the hope of God’s calling on your life, and to understand more fully that you are His great treasure.
Blessings,
Michael