What do you do when you have something of immense value in your hands?

Fitness consulting has always been an important service provided by Scott Free Clinic because a person’s physical fitness directly impacts their mental health.

What you might find interesting is for the past few months a couple of the people I’ve been doing fitness consulting with — and with that, trying mightily (without success thus far) to encourage these two guys to make physical exercise and good nutrition a permanent part of their lives — was none other than the guys who work the front desk on night shift at my local gym.

Yep, a couple of guys who are (one) moderately and (the other) significantly unfit, and one racked by anxiety and depression, yet both have a free membership at the gym which they don’t use.

But they work there.

They don’t have to make an extra or “special” trip to get there.

Yet they won’t make time to exercise and they are persistent consumers of junk food; their bodies and minds feel and show the impact of that.

I shouldn’t have to strain at encouraging these guys to use a rich resource immediately available to them, something that could be positively life-changing for them. Something that is, for several hours each night, literally right under their feet!

But that kind of response to great opportunity isn’t uncommon among human beings.

This real story leads us to an important question, but one that seems to have one clear answer: “What do you do when you have something of immense value in your hands?”

Doesn’t that question just scream a rational answer of, “TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE OF IT!”?

That answer is the one Jesus applied to what do we do when we have something so immensely valuable to us as the kingdom of Heaven:

“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. Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it!” Matthew 13:44-46.

There’s value in physical exercise and good nutrition, but there’s nothing in life more valuable than being reconciled to God and made a citizen of His kingdom.

That’s the priceless treasure offered to us through Jesus Christ. What are you doing with such a great treasure? Are you like the guys at the front desk of the gym? Or like the man who discovered hidden treasure in a field, or the merchant who discovered a pearl of great value?

Scotty