Have you ever seen a diamond before it’s polished? Actually, you may have seen one but didn’t even know it was a diamond. It’s not pretty. It isn’t polished, and it certainly doesn’t have the fire we look for in good quality diamonds. Most people might even sift through stones and toss out a good sized diamond in the rough because there is nothing particularly notable about it – except that it contains the quality, value, and potential that people seek, display, and long for. The value is there. It’s just not obvious yet because the polishers have not had a chance to form it, grind it, shape it according to the pattern that will give it the highest acclaim.
Now think about the people you have run across today. Some may have been very refined, educated, deeply spiritual, thoughtful, full of the fire of God, reflecting the brilliance of Christian faith. But others may have been pretty ordinary; pretty non-exceptional. And some may have even been pretty rough, even ugly – both in appearance and disposition. Yet like the diamond, within them is the value that came from the image of God when He first imagined them in His boundless love. Perhaps not all polished and brilliant, but valuable still. Not because of the fire they exude or the brilliance they reflect, but because of the innate value that comes with being a child of God imprinted with His image.
The journey of salvation is the journey by which that rough, unremarkable stone is turned into a brilliant jewel that flashes with the fire of God in drawing others to Him. It is the image in us that can be restored to the beauty of God’s holy nature and becomes magnetic to others. Of course it begins with the willing submission of the heart of stone to the hand of the Master who forms it, molds it, and remakes it into a heart that reflects His own holy nature. Thanks be to God for the joy of salvation on the path of reflecting Christ in all His holiness.