One of my favorite parables that Jesus told was the one about the merchant and the pearl. It's found in Matthew's Gospel (13:45-46). It goes something like this. A merchant (a fancy salesman) is looking for pearls. Apparently he finds them and sells them or else their is absolutely no reason to tell us that he is a merchant. So, his daily activities would be finding stuff of value (i.e. pearls) and selling it for a profit. That would be how he put food on the table. On one particular occasion he finds a pearl that is of "great" value. Jesus says that he sold everything that he had to get that pearl. End of story. It seems like it would continue to say that he consequently went and sold that pearl and became the richest man alive. But it doesn't. It ends with saying that he just gave up everything to buy that pearl. Judging from the previous parable, where a man sells all he has to by a field with a treasure in it, we can safely assume that on this particular occasion our merchant seeks to keep the pearl. The language is the same... sold all he had... to get the field... to get the pearl. This pearl was so amazing that he quit everything and gave up everything to get this pearl. Jesus' Point - The Kingdom is that amazing. "O taste and see that the Lord is good." (Ps. 34:8)
Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ by John Piper is an attempt to get you to truly "taste and see" the beauty and grandeur of our Lord and Savior. Piper briefly surveys the life, ministry, and character of Jesus in hopes of letting you savor Christ.
Concerning Christ's defeat of Satan, he writes:
The glory of Christ is seen in his absolute right and power to annihilate or incapacitate Satan and all demons. But the reason he refrains from destroying and disabling them altogether is to manifest more clearly his superior beauty and worth. If Christ obliterated all devils and demons now (which he could do), his sheer power would be seen as glorious, but his superior beauty and worth would not shine as brightly as when humans renounce the promises of Satan and take great pleasure in the glory of Christ.
One of the most incredible things about the work of Christ is that it allows us to obtain a treasure, namely, Christ Jesus as our Lord. His beauty is supremely superior than anything created. The ultimate way that Christ is glorified is by humans treasuring him and his rule more than any other thing.
About what he calls the "tough side," Piper writes:
The glory of Jesus Christ is that he is always out of sync with the world and therefore always relevant for the world. If he fit nicely, he would be of little use. The effort to remake the Jesus of the Bible so that he fits the spirit of one generation makes him feeble in another. Better to let him be what he is, because it is often the offensive side of Jesus that we need most.
There is no other person that ever lived that compares to Jesus. He is all we need. He is more than we could ever want. The more we see Jesus, the more we will know that he is good -- that he is best. Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ will help you with that.
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