“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 13:45, 46
“The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl.
The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.”
Revelation 21:21
I have been thinking lately, meditating on the true value-and the true cost- of knowing Jesus, and all that entails.
The metaphor of the merchant- those who are seekers of things of eternal value, of the Pearl, which is Jesus himself,
and finally the realization that His real true worth outweighs the value of everything else.
The rich young man in Matthew 19 could not recognize that he was face to face with that Pearl, so tightly was he clinging to his stuff.
I am sure that he recognized, perhaps too late, that all the things he valued that held sway over him were worthless in the end.
Many of us live in a materialistic consumer oriented, western society of relatively wealthy men and women who are clinging so tightly to their stuff,
that many would not be willing- let me restate that-who are not willing- to get rid of them in exchange for the Pearl.
Paul found it, counting everything else as loss, he recognized that it wasn’t an even trade!
The life he walked away from, and the things his contemporaries treasured was really just garbage.
His prayer for the Ephesians and for us?
“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength”
Ephesians 1:17-19
Jesus is truly our all-in-all.
The twelve actual gates of the New Jerusalem are each one enormous pearl, a metaphor for Jesus as the Gate.
Without receiving Him, without selling off every other part of an idolatrous paradigm to invest in the Pearl of great price we cannot enter in,
cannot begin to know the incomparable depth and riches of the revelation of the knowledge of Jesus.
Beloved, is it time for your garage sale?