“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” Matthew 13:44-46

Jesus tells this parable to explain that the nature of the God’s kingdom – letting God be sovereign in your life – is that when people discover it, they find it worth giving everything for it.

Jesus is not saying we should sell all our earthly possessions to ‘get’ the kingdom of heaven. He’s making a point about the worth of this thing that people are seeking. Jesus is acknowledging that when people glimpse what the kingdom of heaven is about, they consider it the most precious thing imaginable (this in the days before cultured pearls!)

A postcript that God seems to lay on my heart now and then is that he considers us to be treasure of great value to him. In fact he was willing to surrender his own life to buy back, or ‘redeem’, us from slavery to sin, to buy us back our freedom –  to have the possibility of choosing him of our own free will.

Jesus is has been traditionally pictured in art as the ‘pearl of great price’, as the King James Version puts it.  A beautiful song by Jonny Miller band makes both points, that Jesus is of infinite worth to those who recognise his real identity, and amazingly God who created us and rescued us considers us to be just as valuable to him.