TEXT:
MATTHEW 13:44-46
“The kingdom of heaven
is like treasures 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 the 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).
Treasures
are wealth or riches accumulated especially in form of precious metals, money,
jewels or plate. Pearl is something of a great worth. The finest quality
natural pearls have been highly valued as gemstones and objects of beauty for
many centuries, and because of this, the word pearl has become a metaphor for
something VERY RARE, fine, admirable, and valuable (www.en.wikipedia.org ).
In
the parable, Jesus likened the kingdom of heaven to two valuable things,
TREASURES and PEARLS. Jesus used this illustration to show how valuable the
kingdom of God is. The parable described the kingdom of God as treasures hidden
in a field, and the man that found the hidden treasures in the field went and
sold ALL that he had to buy the field. A merchant that was looking for fine pearls
sold ALL he had to buy the fine pearls that he had been looking for.
The
explanation to this parable is that nothing can be as valuable as the kingdom
of God. All the assets and the wealth of this world, that is causing people to
run helter skelter is not worth comparing to the treasures in the kingdom of
heaven.
In
fact, the kingdom of heaven is worth forsaken ALL for! It is better to lose all
the things that you count as “valuables” so that you would have access to the
kingdom of heaven, because wealth and other worldly pleasures if not gotten rid
of can debar your access to the kingdom of God. Apostle Paul said in Philippians
3:7 that whatever was to his profit he now considers loss for the sake of Christ.
In other words, Apostle Paul forsook all he had to be able to gain access to
the kingdom of God. Don’t just be amassing wealth that would cause you to lose
focus on the kingdom of God. The kingdom of heaven is of an inestimable value,
no treasures can be compared with it. When the merchant found the pearl of
great value, he stopped looking for pearls. Eternal life, our inheritance in
Christ, and other blessing of redemption amount to the pearls which when found,
makes other searching unnecessary. The value of the kingdom of heaven supersedes
the whole world and everything in it. Therefore, deny yourself of all the
desires of the flesh, let nothing prevent you from obtaining this valuable
possession.
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