“’ Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient,
“The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief cornerstone.’”
He is precious
Jesus is of inestimable value to Christians because he is in the plan of God from eternity. He is worthy of all value to Christians. Jesus holds dignity and glory in his nature both to God and to Christians. Jesus is precious because he is elect to God.
It is a contraction to true Christianity to be indifferent to Jesus. Jesus must be more precious than our wife, husband, son, or daughter. He is precious to us because God identifies us with him in his own eyes. God identifies Jesus’ worth with us by his work on the cross. This is why he is precious to us.
Those who come to the Savior experience his “graciousness” (1 Pe 2:3). When we come to Christ, we experience his grace. Then we found that he was not only gracious, but he was precious. He becomes increasingly precious the longer we know him. Jesus gets better the older we get if all things are equal. Everything else dims, decays, and degenerates. Jesus looms larger in value to us as time goes on.
PRINCIPLE:
Jesus is precious to those who truly know him.
APPLICATION:
The child of God, close to death, realizes the preciousness of the Lord Jesus. The best is yet ahead for him. The worst is yet ahead for those who do not know Jesus. They do not know what we mean when we talk about the preciousness of the Lord Jesus.
Jesus is precious in the same way our faith is precious (1 Pe 1:7,8). What would you put as the completion of this statement: “I love the Lord because…” What would you put there? Everything we have in time or eternity has been donated by the Lord Jesus. He becomes increasingly precious the more we come to understand this (Gal 6:14).
How precious is the Lord Jesus to you? Jesus is more precious to some believers than others. It is evident from how they lead their lives. Some people love the Lord Jesus more than others. We cannot love the Lord Jesus without knowing him. Once we know him, we love him. The more we love someone, the more we want to do for them (Rev. 2:4). I fear that the Lord is not as precious to some of us as he should be. He is worthy of our honor (Rev. 4:11).
