Pursue Gold, Eternity Starts Now!

The Orthodox Jewish Bible specifies gold Jewelry.

And further on in verse 13 it tells us, “Inside [the palace], the King’s daughter looks splendid, attired in checker-work embroidered with gold. In brocade, she will be led to the King,”

How beautiful that will be, robes woven with gold and gold jewelry?

Where do we get this gold for our robes and our jewelry?

Is there a big wardrobe where all the robes are kept? Maybe they’re all decorated and woven and embroidered, and we pick out the one we like?

I don’t think so. Remember Revelation 3:18, “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen…..”

We have to buy the garments and buy the gold, so that we’re not naked in his presence.  We may have a robe waiting for us, but we have to decorate it before we get there. We’re decorating it right now.

Yeshua tells us Matthew 6:19-20 ¹⁹ “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

How do we lay up treasures in heaven?

1 Corinthians 3:11-14 gives us an idea of what the treasure in heaven is made of:

¹¹ ”For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Yeshua our Messiah. ¹² Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— ¹³ each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. ¹⁴ If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.”

This tells us that the work we’re doing now will be tested and revealed by fire. This is the fire he mentioned in Revelation 3:18. Wood, hay and straw are not going to survive the fire. Our robes will be made of that which survives the refining fire: gold, silver and precious stones.  When these are put through the fire, they are cleansed and made more brilliant.  Heat and pressure are required to reveal precious stones.

How do we buy this gold?

Yeshua’s words in Matthew 6 about storing up treasure in heaven come just after several examples of ways we can do this.  It includes a list of things we are to do. And then he ends each one with the same instruction:

Verses 3-4, “when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

Verse 6, “when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

Verses 17-18, “when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

So giving, praying and fasting are standard practices. It’s expected that we are doing these, but it’s how we do them that determines our gold, our treasure.

So we are storing up rewards in heaven when we do the right thing for only the Father to see, when we do good deeds that only the Father can see, when we do not seek the reward and accolades of others, but only him. And even going to the extent of doing them in secret, not letting anyone know or find out or suspect what we’ve done.

Another thing that indicates gold, silver and precious stones is when we do things that only the Father can reward us for, things for which man cannot or will not reward us.

In Luke 6:27-32 Yeshua gives us 10 ways to store up treasures in heaven.

1. ²⁷ “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, 
2. do good to those who hate you, 
3. ²⁸  bless those who curse you, 
4. pray for those who abuse you. 
5. ²⁹  To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 
6. ³⁰ Give to everyone who begs from you,
7. and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 
8. ³¹ And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”  (The “golden” rule)
9. ³² If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. ³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. ³⁵ But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High,
10. for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.  ³⁶ Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

These 10 things are going against the grain in order to do good.

Matthew 6 tells us to do our good works in secret for the Father’s eyes only. And Luke 6 tells us to go even further to doing works that only he will reward.

These are just some of the ways we buy gold, and silver and precious stones so that we will not be naked in his presence. This is the treasure that we are storing up in heaven, so that we will be clothed in brocade embroidered with gold as we stand beside Yeshua on his throne.

How much does this gold cost?

What did he mean in Revelation 3, “buy gold from me”?

Remember, we’re dealing in heavenly currency. Prices are calculated a little differently. The price of gold will be different for each us.

If you like things fair, it will cost you a lot to be kind to ungrateful and evil people. If you need things equitable, it may be expensive to not demand what’s yours to be given back to you. It’s going to cost you some self-control to bless those who curse you. It’s going to cost you your pride to do good to those who hate you. And it may cost you financially to lend without expecting payment.  (We call that donating.)  Every time you lend, it should be considered a donation in case you don’t get it back.

Have you ever prayed for God to bless your enemies? Prayed for actual people that have mistreated you or that don’t like you? Not just a quick shout out to heaven, but actually on your knees for them? I have found that to be a humbling experience. That reveals our heart.

The kingdom of heaven can only be bought with your heart.  There’s no faking that. The Father sees straight into your heart.

BUT… Nothing we suffer will ever compare to what Yeshua suffered for us:

Phil. 2:5-9a “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Yeshua our Messiah, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,^[c] being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ⁹ Therefore God has highly exalted him…”

AND… Nothing on this earth is worth more than what we have in Yeshua:

Eph. 1:18-21 “that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹ and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might ²⁰ that he worked in Yeshua when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹ far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.”

Wow! That is worth a lot. For that, maybe I could love my enemies. Maybe I could pray for those who mistreat me. Maybe I could let it go when someone steals from me. Maybe I could lend without expecting it back. Maybe I could do good deeds in secret for only the Father’s eyes.

It makes all the difference to know that all of these actions are piling up gold, silver and precious stones that moths and rust can never ruin and no one can ever take away, and creating a beautifully adorned robe that the Father gives me to wear for eternity.

And don’t you just bet He’ll tell us the story of how each piece was put on our robe? “This ruby is for the time you fasted when I asked you to and no one else ever knew about it. This gold necklace is for the time when you paid for something and never got it and never demanded it back. This row of silver is for the time when your boss took advantage of you, but you did the work anyway without complaining.”

What God gives us for eternity is so much more important than what man takes from us on earth.

Speaking of the bride of Yeshua

Who is the bride of Yeshua?  Who is the temple?  And what is a church?  It’s not the building.  And what is Israel? It’s not just a nation or a piece of land.  Israel is a people group.

With that in mind, look at Revelation 21:9-14

“Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, ‘Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ ¹⁰ And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, ¹¹ having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. ¹² It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed— ¹³ on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. ¹⁴ And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”

Consider this:  Yeshua tells us to store up our treasure in heaven, because out of heaven comes his bride.  The new Jerusalem is made up of us, our works of gold, silver and precious stones. We are his bride, we are adorned for him.

Revelation 21:2-3
“And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven (where our treasures are stored)from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.’”

God will dwell in the city – he will dwell in his people.

Revelation 21:22
“And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.”

The temple is God and the Lamb, Yeshua, and the city is us, his bride.

In the new heaven and new earth our gold and our silver and our precious stones are not something we put on, or something we wear.  They are who we are.  Our treasure becomes who we are and our role and place in God’s eternal city.  We become the adornment around him for eternity.  Revelation 21:27 tells us that only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will be allowed in the city. Every name written in the Lamb’s book of Life will be written on that eternal city, which is a metaphor for his bride. His people are represented by their treasure that they’ve stored up in heaven.

And all that starts right now.  We’re building eternity now.  Who we are in this life will be refined with fire and polished and sanctified and purified to adorn the gift that the Father gives his son, Yeshua.  And when we’re all brought together from across the centuries, across the nations, and the Father presents us to Yeshua as a bride, it will be a dazzling array of beauty, perfectly fitted together and glorious as the dwelling place of the Great I Am and The Lamb of God.

Pursue gold, and store up your treasure in heaven!  Eternity starts now!

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