You Are Precious to God
“Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece, which I lost!’ Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:8-10).
Three Aspects of God’s Work
The Holy Scripture reveals to us a wonderful mystery of God, that He is triune (three-in-one). This simply means that by His infinite wisdom this one true God reveals Himself to us as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Many may wonder why He is so complicated. By God’s grace, we can only say this much: God is triune for man’s sake, so that He might fulfill His purpose with man. The three parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son in Luke 15 are simple but profound illustrations of the work of the triune God. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, came two thousand years ago as the Good Shepherd, the Savior and Redeemer, to give His life for our salvation. Then the Holy Spirit comes into the believers’ spirit to “light a lamp” and be the light in them. At the same time the Spirit regenerates the believers into sons of God and dwells in them as the eternal life. Finally, God the Father receives the believers as His own sons in His house, the church. In this booklet, we want to consider the second aspect of God’s work – that of the Holy Spirit. This second parable shows us the work of the Holy Spirit of God. The Spirit is just like the hardworking caring woman searching diligently for a lost precious coin until she finds it. In God’s eyes, there is something so precious in man just like the silver coin is to the woman in the parable. This is marvelous! We are precious to God! How often have we heard that we are all just sinners before God, eternally damned if we do not repent? True, after the fall of the first man Adam we all became sinners in need of salvation; but there is something more than just salvation – there is something in man that God is seeking for. The parable of the silver coin shows us that God sees a lost treasure in us that needs to be recovered.
Why Are You So Precious to God?
Why is man so precious to God? To know the answer to this question, you must realize that God created man for numerous reasons:
1) To express God
The Bible tells us that man is created in God’s image and according to His likeness. His image and likeness in man are precious! This means that man was created to express God; and the expression of God is His glory. Therefore, man was created for God’s glory. For this reason, in spite of man’s fallen condition, God has not given up man. The psalmist asked, “What is man, that You are mindful of him, and the son of man, that You visit him?” (Psalm 8:4). Why would God possibly still be interested in man? Because He desires to recover His image in man so that he should be to the praise of His glory (Ephesians 1:12). For this very purpose, God Himself even became a man in Christ Jesus to die for our sins and to save us from eternal judgment.
�2) To become His sons
We read in the Bible that God’s son, Jesus Christ, is the one who brings “many sons into glory” (Hebrews 2:10). You were called to express God, but you cannot do so simply by trying to be religious or pious. Expressing God is absolutely a matter of life. There is only one kind of life and one type of nature that can express God the divine life and nature of God Himself. Man has been chosen and predestined to be sons of God (Ephesians 1:4) by being born of God. Jesus once told a well-known rabbi called Nicodemus that he needed to be born again (John 3:3,7); he had to be born of the Holy Spirit to receive God’s life into his own human spirit. In another place we also read, “as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness… that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:3-4). Is it not wonderful that you and I can become sons of God and partake of God’s nature in our human spirit?
However, instead of expressing God today, fallen humanity continues to degrade and express the sinful and evil nature of Satan. Everywhere we look we find ungodliness, lawlessness, immorality, hatred, selfishness, problems, addictions, brutality, and war, etc. The only salvation out of all these evil things is by faith in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. By believing in Him, you can be cleansed and delivered from all your sins. By your faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit also comes into you, giving you a new and eternal life, the life of God. By receiving the life of God you become a son of God. Truly, God desires to have many sons who express His life and nature. He desires to have sons filled with the reality of His life to glorify Him on this earth today. We human beings are the only creatures that can receive God’s life, because we were created in His image, according to His likeness, and with a human spirit deep within us. This is why man is so precious to God.
3) To be a living temple
Another reason man is precious to God is that man is created to be God’s dwelling place, God’s temple: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). God wants to dwell in man. God’s house is not that building on the corner with a steeple and a church bell. The Bible says that He does not dwell in a house built by human hands. God does not dwell in a cathedral, instead He desires to dwell in man. Man is destined to be God’s dwelling place.
One of the most amazing truths in the word of God is found in John 14:23, “If anyone loves me… My father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” John 14:20 even says, “In that day, you shall know that I am in My father, and you in Me, and I in you.” God and man can become a mutual abode. Only man can be a true home to God, and only God is the true home for man. As someone once said, “Our heart is full of unrest, Lord, until it finds rest in You, O God.” This is really true, and our Christian experience confirms it.
The Holy Scripture gives us many more reasons why we are so dear to God, but these few aspects should be sufficient for now.
The Threefold Working of the Holy Spirit
Jesus said, “And when He (the Comforter) has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged” (John 16:8-11).
There are three main parties in this world: God, Satan, and man. Man, who originally was created for God, fell into sin through Satan’s deception. But God came in Christ Jesus as a man to free us. He fulfilled all the righteous requirements demanded of us by God. Then He died for us on the cross. Thus, he that believes in God will be justified. The ultimate sin that causes man to perish eternally is the sin of not believing in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He who does not believe will be judged together with Satan, the ruler of this world and the author of sin. Jesus Christ took your sins and your entire judgment upon Himself. He paid a great price for you on the cross. All you need to do is repent, believe this fact, receive Him, and be baptized into Him. Jesus is the righteous one who died for the unrighteous. As proof of His righteousness, God resurrected Him from the dead and raised Him to sit at His throne at His right hand. God has made Jesus Christ to be our righteousness. The believers therefore are justified by faith in Jesus Christ before God. They are saved and freed from sin and eternal judgment; and they are born of God.
The Lighting of the Candle – the Light of Life Comes through the Spirit
When preaching the gospel, we sometimes hear people say, “What is sin? Define sin. There is no such thing as sin!” If anyone is determined to harden his heart, it is futile to try to convince him of sin. Only the Holy Spirit can convict man through the love of God. Why is it so difficult for many to admit that they are sinful? The Scripture gives us the following reason: death and darkness reign in every fallen man. You cannot see anything in the dark. Imagine yourself in a very dirty room with no light. You would probably think that everything is fine. Just as you have no sense of the dirt in that dark room, people who are in darkness have no sense of their sinfulness. If someone told them, “Friend, you are a sinner”, they would probably brush him off. Even if they would acknowledge it, it would only be a theory to them as long as the Holy Spirit has not given them light. Such acknowledgement will never lead anyone to a sincere and deep repentance for his sins because he lacks a true consciousness of his inward sinful condition.
God, however, has diagnosed each one of us as a sinner (Romans 3:23). Yet because we do not see what He sees, we have no real sense of our evil and sinful condition until His light shines into our heart. Even now as you are reading these lines, God’s love is working through the Holy Spirit so that you would open up to Him. Then the Spirit of God, like the woman in her house, will enter into you and light a lamp in you. The light will immediately expose the dirt and the secrets of your heart. You will begin to recognize all your sins and realize how unclean you are. Then when you see your condition, you will feel the anguish in your heart and will repent. You know it is God’s love through the working of the Spirit that shows us the real condition of our inward parts. Thank God, however, that the work of the Holy Spirit does not end with Him as the light exposing our sinful condition and leading us to repentance. By God’s love and mercy, the work of the Holy Spirit continues to cleanse us of all the dirt!
The Cleansing of the House
What is the first thing we do when we move into a house? We would naturally clean the house and fix up everything according to our own taste to feel at home. The Holy Spirit does the same loving work in us. As soon as someone repents, the Holy Spirit enters into his human spirit and “lights the lamp”. Then He cleanses this person just as a good housewife would clean her house. Through His love that leads us to repentance, we can confess our sins and be cleansed by the blood of Jesus and the pure water of the Spirit of life. “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin…If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:7,9). “… But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). Indeed the work of the Holy Spirit is much needed and very wonderful. God not only sent His Son to come and accomplish redemption for us, He also sent the Holy Spirit into us, His believers (Galatians 4:6). I remember the time I experienced the enlightening of the Holy Spirit inwardly. For the first time in my life, I realized my true inward condition. Suddenly, I was made aware of my sins and I repented of them. I wept before the Lord because I saw my sinful condition. Afterwards, I was filled with joy, because I had the assurance that my sins were forgiven by the blood of Jesus; I was fully cleansed. I was filled with the Holy Spirit! This is the shining and cleansing work of the Holy Spirit.
Why does the Holy Spirit shine in our heart and cleanse us? He wants to recover the lost silver coin in you – He can recover all the precious things God had invested in you when He created man. It is so good to have the full assurance of His cleansing. His word tells us: “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you…” (Ezekiel 36:25-27). God not only wants to cleanse us from our sins; He also wants to indwell us by His Spirit. He wants to be our life so that we can express Him.
The Spirit of Man — a Lamp of the Lord
Proverbs 20:27 tells us, “The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the inner depths of his heart.” The human spirit is a lamp. Everyone has a human spirit, but it is dead because of sin. It has to be made alive and has to be lit as a lamp. This occurs by faith in Jesus Christ and by being baptized into Christ. As soon as you open yourself to the Lord, confess your sins and tell Him that you believe in Him, the Spirit of God will come into your spirit and light the lamp. Then when the light is in our spirit, it will search all the inner depths of our heart – our mind, our emotion, and our will. How unclean our mind is! I do not need to describe it; we all know it too well. It is not very different with our emotion and our will. What kinds of feelings sometimes arise in our hearts. How often we do things that we should not! The Holy Spirit of God would like to come into these innermost parts and turn them into His dwelling place. He not only wants to light the lamp so that you would recognize your sins, but He also wants to drive out all the sins and filth. Bit by bit as He is doing this work in you, He begins to live in you, be your new life, renew and transform you. You become a son of God who gradually expresses the Father. God the Father will rejoice in you, and you will be filled with the joy of the Lord. What a marvelous work the Holy Spirit does to recover the lost silver coin!
Being a Christian –
Not Just an Outward Behavior
Being a Christian is not just a matter of good outward behavior. One could behave like a good Christian outwardly and yet be very unholy in the heart like a Pharisee. Your behavior is not the deciding factor – (by this I do not mean that it is alright to behave improperly). Some people may seem to behave well outwardly, but their behavior does not come from the inner life of Christ and lasts only for a short while. Being a true Christian, however, is something completely different. Being a Christian is an inner matter of the spirit and therefore requires the enlightenment by the Holy Spirit. This means that the Spirit of God comes to work in us by illuminating and cleansing us from within. At the same time, by His indwelling and His supply of life, He transforms us into His glorious image day by day reclaiming in us what is so precious to Him.
The Working of the Holy Spirit – a Subjective Experience
In closing, I would like to add that what Christ fulfilled on the cross is an objective fact accounted to us by faith without any works of the law on our part. The working of the Holy Spirit, however, is the inward operation of His life within us, requiring our willingness and cooperation day by day.
How wonderful it is that God deals with us in such a way! If only our eyes would be opened to see how wonderful God is and what He wants to accomplish in us, then we would give ourselves to Him completely. This has nothing to do with religion, behavior, or anything outward, but it has everything to do with the Spirit of God entering into us to accomplish God’s work. God never demands us to accomplish something by ourselves and out of our own strength. All we have to do is simply to open ourselves to Him. Tell Him, “Lord Jesus, I receive you. Lord Jesus, I repent for all my sins. You are my Savior. Thank You that You died for me on the cross. I repent and I want to be baptized into your name. Let your Holy Spirit come into me right now!” Amen.