Devotional Guide, Today’s Reading Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Theme: SOME PARABLES OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST

Text: “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.” – Matthew 13:45, 46.

Comment: In Christ’s parable of the pearl merchant, he likens anyone who searches for the kingdom to a merchant man who deals on pearls.  Pearls are precious stones found in the shells of oysters, chiefly in the East Indies.  They are of high commercial value because of their beauty. Compare Matthew 7:6; 1 Timothy 2:9.

The kingdom news brings relief, comfort, joy, hope and other profound benefits.  Bible writers often describe the truth or wisdom of God as costly jewels – Job 28:15-19; Proverbs 3:15; 8:11.

Because the truth can be obtained in God’s Kingdom Organisations, anyone who has identified with her should not make light of it (Proverbs 23:23) but as the merchant man did, such ones should deploy everything at their disposal to inherit the kingdom.  Speaking through Isaiah, God asked “Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” – Isaiah 55:2.

In practical term, one could be said to have “sold all that he had” to acquire the truth when one makes conscious efforts to act on the demands of the truth by laying “aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us.” (Hebrews 12:1).  May God grant us the understanding of the truth which benefit has promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. – 1 Timothy 4:8.

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