Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Matthew 13:44-46 (NLT)
44 “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.
45 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. 46 When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it!
It is important that great value is placed on the Kingdom of Heaven. It is worthy of giving up and forsaking all this world has to offer. It is important that we teach others that the most important thing you can obtain in this life is not the best degree from the best school, the highest paying job, the best looking spouse, the nicest car or anything else the world desires us to strive for. The most important thing you can teach your children, your Sunday school class or that new Christian at church is the Kingdom of Heaven is worth all that and more. Are those things wrong or inherently evil? Absolutely not! The problem lies when we act, teach or even infer that the things of this world are of any greater value than the Kingdom of Heaven. 
Did you notice the man in the verse 44 doesn’t just find the treasure and quietly slink away from the field with treasure in hand? He laboriously reburied the treasure, and then, get this, went to the trouble of selling all he owned all that he had, and bought the field with his earnings. All that just to find a treasure of such great value that he could have potentially just snuck away with in the beginning. That’s how important the things of God are! 
What about the Pearl Merchant in the second story? It was his livelihood to search for, buy and sell pearls. However there was something different about this pearl. Do you have something in your life that is of the utmost importance to you? One thing that you could put your finger on and say that’s my most prized possession. Visualize that one thing and then realize that the Kingdom of Heaven is of infinite more value than even that one thing. The Pearl Merchant did. 
How important is the kingdom to you? Are you willing to let everything go that you have worked for on this earth, in order to obtain it? Jesus told stories sometimes rather simple stories in an effort to get a point across. These two stories are actually tied together, not only sequentially but also thematically. We are capable of the very same thing, telling a story or stories that make sense in our time and place in our context that our children,  or students or friends or even coworkers can understand.
As parents, teachers, proclaimers of the Gospel and Christians sometimes it would be beneficial if we would take truths and convey it in a story that people could wrap their minds around. Have you ever noticed that some of the best memories, you may have, would be that one grandparent or family member or even your crazy “Uncle Si” of the family that could really tell a story? Sometimes we will remember that story or its lesson for a lifetime. Jesus really did know what He was doing by giving us great truth so that we could not only remember it but also show us how to transfer that truth to others. Maybe, just maybe we could stand to be better story tellers and convey God’s truth through our stories and help others to understand and relate to the real life situations they are going through. 
God Bless, 

Bro. Grant