"The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field" (NLT).
I can understand the idea of hiding something until I have the money to buy it. More than one woman has moved an item to the back of the rack or shelf until she can come back and hopefully find it there. Especially those one of a kind items. But here is what I saw today:
"In his excitement, he hid it again..."
It occurred to me today that sometimes we find that treasure and then we leave it hidden. I doubt very much that the man in Matthew bought the field and then left the treasure there to gloat over. Considering that he'd sold everything to buy it, he'd probably need a little ready cash. Besides, the Bible clearly says he was excited about it!
But do we sometimes hoard our treasure? It can be unnerving to share Christ with people that we think will be skeptical or just might think we sound weird. We sometimes don't say anything because we assume they won't be interested. Or, even worse, maybe, we assume they know - that they've heard about salvation and have already settled things with God. So we sit contentedly with our promise of an eternal kingdom and leave it hidden from view.
It's a treasure that can be shared. The price was invaluable and is more than others can afford to pay. So don't hide it. Let them know that this treasure can be theirs, too.
