The Pearl of Great Price

In Matthew, Jesus explains the Christ within and its value. Using spiritual language, He shares the parable of the pearl of great price, a most precious pearl, worth disposing of everything else in order to obtain it. This ideal, perfect jewel is the Lord within us, forming the kingdom of God within the His Body of believers. His kingdom is not a literal place to be found externally. Jesus was very clear about this:

“Now He was questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, and He answered them and said, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with signs that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.’”

And He said to the disciples, ‘The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, ‘Look there,’ or, ‘Look here!’ Do not leave, and do not run after them.’" Luke 17:21-22 NASB

Now, more than ever in such days of worsening trouble and turmoil in the earth, Jesus continues to say that He is here. He is right here, right now, ever within us. He never fails nor forsakes us. His kingdom is a spiritually attainable place of dwelling. His kingdom is not seen in terrestrial signs of prosperity, wealth, or goodness. This is a kingdom of righteousness, peace, love and joy, the very most precious of heart qualities of great price to purchase by giving everything we have and are to obtain it.

God’s presence is purging out such irritants that contaminate, such as judgment, religious rules about eating or drinking, external behaviors that discount or ignore heart issues. He has always made the character of the inner man His priority. We desire to speak the word of God to others, to share His truth and wisdom. But when we do so with the wrong attitude of heart, with judgment or condemnation, with pride or ego, or even with guile or fear, this is what offends, creatiing stumbling blocks and snares in others.

Here it is particularly clear word spoken to all brothers and sisters in Christ, advocating for an attitude of compassion and love which increases a willingness to understand to the listener:

“Therefore let’s not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this: not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s or sister’s way. I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to the one who thinks something is unclean, to that person it is unclean.

For if because of food your brother or sister is hurt, you are no longer walking in accordance with love. Do not destroy with your choice of food that person for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil;

for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. ” Romans 14:13-17 NASB

Our spiritual walk really is about these qualities of the heart as birthed and nurtured by the spirit. Oh, if we all could truly hear this so that our judgment, our religious rules are not the primary display of our Christianity! The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the holy spirit working within to shine out of us. Yes, there is right living to be seen, along with peace and joy, embedded in God’s nature of love. These qualities do not cause others to stumble or to be snared by false beliefs and representations of our Lord.

Such are the qualities of the Christ within, the ideal pearl of His kingdom which He fully represents. God does everything purposefully, including the careful choice of the symbols Jesus utilized in His earthly ministry. He only spoke what the Father gave Him, so the parable of the pearl of great price is God’s word.

What can we learn from how a pearl forms within the oyster? What is the deeper understanding we can gain from this metaphor for the kingdom within? Pearls are made by marine oysters and freshwater mussels as a natural defence against an irritant like a parasite or something else that enters their shell, potentially damaging their fragile body. The oyster or mussel slowly secretes layers of the elements that also make up its shell.

The best pearls come from oysters as they cover irritants. After a few years (yes it takes time), the most beautiful pears are formed which are lighter but stronger than concrete. Even scientists call this miraculous! God’s creation is filled with such marvelous examples of His handiwork. Jesus used common examples from the life and culture of the times to explain His words to the crowds who followed Him.

Just so, Father God allows irritants of adversity to bring about the beautiful pearl of the Christ within us. Satan may initiate but God turns it for our good, for the inner growth of His character inside of us. The most valuable pearls come from pure waters not polluted by man. Do you catch that parallel in the spirit? The most rare and costly pearls occur in pure waters, with only 1 in 10,000 of the most valuable pearls formed by oysters produced within it.

It takes a long time, many workings within that pearl to truly cover the irritant or invader with mother of pearl, forming the most beautiful, strong, and highly valued jewel of all. Just so, it takes a long time for the Lord to form the Christ character within us. It is most hopeful to realize the irritants of this life are invaders, not belonging and not meant to stay within us. They are there only to do the work of covering our human nature with the Pearl of Great Price, the Christ within.

How long it takes for us to overcome the irritants, even the tiny ones, and the intruders in our mind, will, and emotions that invade us to cause potential harm! The beautiful precious nature of the Lord covers these over so they do not rob us of peace, love, and joy. Can you see more clearly of what the Father is speaking when Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is the pearl of great price? It is costly, it takes time, must be prioritized and protected, allowed to grow up into Him.

Jesus Christ Himself is the Ideal Pearl, a planting of the kingdom within us. His purpose is to make us like Him, overlaying our nature of flesh with His precious iridescent covering of love, peace and joy, luminescent for all to see. Catch this key point: it’s the irritants that cause the pearl to form! Anything that irritates us, anything that disrupts our pure growth, is creating this Pearl when yielded to Him! Adversity brings growth, yet how difficult it can be to endure what He allows to come into our lives as we desire to become more like Him.

One of the things that has to go is judgment of others and self. My particular challenge is the judgment I have for others who are judgmental! After all, it’s a matter of the heart within all of us. Why do humans judge one another—sometimes mildly, perhaps not verbalized, other times viciously and loudly with words and attitudes that hurt our fellow man, let alone our brothers and sisters in Christ? What is the judgment that the Lord desires to purge from us so that we do not cause a snare or a stumbling block for others in finding their way to God?

Here’s a sample of common judgmental thoughts and attitudes that may rise up within, needing to be purged by God’s holy spirit: “Why can’t they see the truth? How can they be so blind? We must chastise and challenge them for not meeting the righteous standard set by the Word. How can they do that [name a sin that we don’t understand or could never imagine doing]? What a disgusting person to [name sinful behavior such as drunkenness or fleshly entertainment or sexual immorality or…]?”

In such areas of the heart, we may be very right in the truth but very wrong in the judgment and condemnation of the other person. God’s judgment is always for redemption, to bring about a heart change. Human judgment does not show the way to Christ, the way out of the flesh nature. We are to speak truth in love, not one or the other. When God allows us to see within the heart of mankind, we see the wounds that create such behavior, the lack of knowing the Lord as we know Him, the very sin nature to which all of creation has been subjected.

God has chastised me before for beating a blind man when I continued to challenge an unbeliever who was then in my life. Oh, I wanted him to change for himself and for me, but the way I was going about it certainly did not draw him to Christ. That is the Father’s job and only He knows whether this was accomplished before this person’s death. Hear this:

“Do not judge, so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and look, the log is in your own eye?

You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye! Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.’” Matthew 7:1-6 NASB

These words spoken by our Lord are carefully chosen by Father God to teach us, to bring us into all truth. When we throw righteous principles before unbelievers, we waste our precious holy words, casting pearls before swine. We all do it with believers as well, seeing the mote in another while ignoring the beam in our own. The mote in their eye that we see may be their failure to follow the rules of our religion. It may be an attitude or behavior in relationships. It is failure to follow the rules and laws of how we believe life is to be lived.

The beam in our eye, coming from our heart, is the judgment, the condemnation we have for others who don’t know the way, irritate and disappoint us, refuse the truth—or at least, our truth. Holy things are not for dogs. This is representative of those who will bite and devour one another over a scrap of truth and follow anyone who will feed them. We are not to cast our pearls of wisdom in front of hogs, a powerful metaphor for those of us who know about them.

Swine will eat anything without discrimination, lacking discernment of what is precious and what is vile. When not led by the spirit, we are sharing our pearls of godly wisdom with those who are unable to receive it. Others’ hearts must be prepared, just like the fields that are plowed to receive a planting for growth. Each is called in their time, in the order God has chosen, not when we decide it should happen.

We may know we have something to say, but it must be under God’s direction. How many words we waste with those not prepared or even called (yet) to hear them! It is so important to be taught of the Lord what to speak and when to speak it. And it is so very hard when we truly do have so much to say!

“Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God. For God is in heaven and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.” Ecclesiastes 5:2 KJV

We are to be neither rash nor hasty to utter anything before God. Everything we say and do is before Him. Strong’s translates to be rash as “to be alarmed or agitated, to hasten anxiously, be dismayed, to make haste be speedy, thrust out, trouble, vex,” with making haste similarly clarified in the original Hebrew. This truth appears in many places in His word, and is meant for us:

“Sin is not ended by multiplying words, but the prudent hold their tongues.” Proverbs 10:19 KJV

“The soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.” Proverbs 15:4 KJV

“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” James 1:18-19 KJV

Those of us gifted with many words easily said need the holy spirit to continually cut back on our unnecessary, untimely, ineffective and, yes, useless flood of words. How often when faced with opposition, our words multiply while our hearts become so contaminated with agitation, fear, and anger, we cannot hear. We miss the mark of listening for understanding when we hasten with perverse, distorted, even vicious words from our mouths, crushing the spirit of those we are to elevate and educate.

And how sad when this happens with little ones we are raising. Children truly do not know to do right and often have not the spiritual or physical development to follow through. There are some types of parental tongues that crush many a child’s spirit while attempting to correct and teach. It’s the self-will that needs to be crushed by loving godly discipline, not that precious spirit within that God created and nurtures in little ones, our little ones and Father God’s little ones.

We can crush the spirit of babes in Christ and unbelievers when they miss the mark. Sin is when we know to do right and don’t do it, translated as missing the mark or the target. How many religious words have been spoken through the centuries and how much has the world actually changed because we spoke truth to those who lack the wisdom and maturity to know what the target is, what is right in God, let alone be able to do it? Jesus changed the world with His words, yet the hearts of mankind are slow to hear, believe, and understand Him, to walk in His ways.

Those of us who desire before God for others to see the Christ within us long for the day when the fruit of His kingdom will be seen in us. How we pray that God will be in control of our tongues! What an unruly member it is!

“The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.” James 3:6-10 NIV

God is the only one to tame the tongue as no human has been able to do it. A tongue under the control of Father God would only say what the Father says, just like Jesus Christ did in His earthly ministry. This only becomes possible when this Pearl of great price completely overlays our fleshly nature with His essence of love, the most powerful force in the universe. Ask the Lord and He will begin to teach us, work within us, this marvelous ability to speak only His words to others.

God delivered a powerful and humbling lesson about this to me when I asked the Lord to truly stop me from saying anything that was not led by Him. I am well known as a talker so this is a long confessed need for change that I have been holding before the Lord. I so desire a conversation with others that does not bring regret afterward. It’s not necessarily inappropriate or gross things so much as unnecessary chatter, unimportant information, words that I want to say but the listener does not need to hear.

God answered this sincere prayer of my heart in a recent visit from our son. He granted deep peace while I hardly said anything over the few hours we were all together. I was amazed at myself and knew it was His intervention. It was a humbling lesson in how often I utter wasted, rash words stemming from my wandering, undisciplined mind. It wasn’t my time to be heard, to be contributing, even spiritually, to this particular conversation.

Amazingly, the Lord answered my sincere prayer as I sat quietly and prayed, loving the peace and rest I felt, being led of His spirit rather than my own flesh. And no regrets afterword! Though more lessons about my words are to come, I love seeing answered prayer for God’s way in me! Yes, the Lord gifted me with words but it is an ongoing refinement for my growth into the Christ.

Often I ask for spiritual duck tape to cover my mouth until my heart is pure, without offense. I join with other sincere believers in praying for and desiring no regrets from offending others, particularly people I care about, with too many words from self spoken casually or in haste, while ignoring the guile in my heart. Along with Jabez, I am most committed to desiring to cause others no pain because of my self nature:

“And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, ‘Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!’ So God granted him what he requested.” 1 Chronicles 4:10 NKJV

May God grant this request within His own, so that we increasingly speak truth in love, words that are edifying to others, truth in due season. We desire to enter in to His kingdom with all our brothers and sisters in Christ, an avenue for others to enter in. Who among us in the Body of Christ has not tasted of the Lord’s graciousness, His kindness as the Concordant Literal states?

Even the challenge to speak only what He speaks, like our Lord Jesus Christ, shows forth His kindness toward us more than any public chastisement without condemnation. He corrects us in private, with Him, redirecting us gently to His ways rather than ours. When there has been offense, He allows repair and restoration along with forgiveness and this takes humility and meekness!

He is often the only one who knows, as mankind does not set the same standard that the pearl of great price illustrates. Others may think many things Christians struggle with along our path of life are no big deal. God thinks the inner issues are the biggest deal, the inner workings of the most evil part of us, the heart. Peter said:

“Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” 1-3 KJV

Oh how we miss this in our love affair with church rules and regulations, outer forms of religion, establishing external laws that cannot and never will alter the inner condition of our hearts! From beginning to end, God’s word speaks of the heart, how deceitful it is, how He is the only one Who sees our hearts clearly, while none of us can truly see our own.

We miss the mark over and over, yet He knows our desire to be righteous, to please Him Who is our life. Only the holy spirit can illuminate what we need to see about our own hearts and He does this so very kindly and graciously. He knows we are but dust, unable in any way to purify our hearts other than yielding to the inner workings of His spirit.

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He is mindful that we are dust.” Psalms 103:13-14 Berean

Thankfully, Jesus Christ is intent on having a church without spot or wrinkle, hearts with no guile, brothers and sisters who are made into His image and likeness. Then the world will finally know Him, as Paul says, in the power of His resurrection. Here is the way of wise words leading others to understand the call, come up to the heights, to meet with others who are being perfected while staying on track in His holy path of life for all.

Then we are in possession of that Pearl of great price worth letting go of everything else. Then we are enabled to share God’s chosen words within us as pearls of His wisdom, formed within by Him and shining out to others:

“Does not wisdom call, and understanding raise her voice? On top of the heights beside the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand; Beside the gates, at the opening to the city, at the entrance of the doors, she cries out:

‘To you, people, I call, and my voice is to mankind. You naive ones, understand prudence; and, you fools, understand wisdom! Listen, for I will speak noble things; and the opening of my lips will reveal right things. For my mouth will proclaim truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips.

All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing crooked or perverted in them. They are all straightforward to him who understands, and right to those who find knowledge.” Proverbs 8:1-9 NASB

Is this not our strongest desire? This is what God sees in our deepest heart, that we want to be like Him, to please our heavenly Father, to cause no offense to His holy spirit, to truly have hearts pure, holy and without guile. Impossible in ourselves, but this is already set in motion for those who love Him. It is the actual Plan and Purpose of God! This is why Solomon said how important wisdom and understanding is rather than knowledge alone.

“Acquire wisdom! Acquire understanding! Do not forget nor turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not abandon her, and she will guard you; love her, and she will watch over you.

The beginning of wisdom is: Acquire wisdom; and with all your possessions, acquire understanding. Prize her, and she will exalt you; she will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a garland of grace; she will present you with a crown of beauty.” Proverbs 4:5-9 NASB

King Solomon asked wisdom and understanding when he became king of Israel. He was wise enough to know that he did not have the needed wisdom and knowledge to lead God’s great nation of people. And neither do we when we draw from the carnal mind instead of the mind of Christ. Solomon lived the truth of these words in Proverbs 4, and was promised everything else, including long life, because of asking for this as his desire of the Lord.

We follow on to know the Lord, seeking the wisdom of His kingdom so we will truly have His heart replacing our stony heart of flesh. Then we are able to forget the past, having no regrets about the words that come out of our mouths, because He has purified them, overlaying them with the precious Pearl of great price that is His nature. We overcome this flesh and all its ways, including any wordy ways, through Him.

The Lord Jesus Christ has done everything for us, making the way back to the Father, showing us the path of life. We each become a unique, living example of those able to obtain this precious jewel worked within from all life’s irritants that come our way. We are enabled to speak an apt word, one that fits in communicating what God wants to say. We still have different ways in which we use words, including some using more words to express ourselves than others, but the Holy Spirit guides and teaches each of us our unique way, our specific path.

His word always accomplishes what He sends it to do. There is no lack, no failure in Him. What is not done yet He has allowed, what is done is only by the power and authority of His word of truth spoken from being fully centered into His nature of love. Proverbs often speaks to what is precious, words that are most pleasing to Him, effectively used by His servants to change the lives of others.

Let us celebrate every irritant that is created within us, knowing that it is a precious opportunity to be covered over by His nature as we submit to His ways in dealing with it. We are growing ever closer to being perfected in Him to have a precious word that is a gift, even when in reproof, to others!

“Apricots of gold in pictures of silver is a word on its aptly spoken. A pendant of gold and an eardrop of certified gold is the reproof of a wise man upon a hearkening ear.” Proverbs 25:11-12 CLV