Pearl of Great Price
A hurt or a wrong was described to me by a Pastor using the story of the Pearl of Great price, he interpreted the story this way - A clam gets a piece of sand or some other irritant inside it's shell it has no way of getting rid of that piece of sand. Instead the clam produces a mucus that covers that piece of sand to make it slippery as time goes by the coatings of mucus keep covering the sharp edges of that irritant until eventually it is smooth and becomes a beautiful pearl. This process can take many years and the pearl never leaves the clam until we open it up. This is your hurt or irritant it will always be a part of you it could be physical or mental abuse or any other wrong done to you. Each time we feel that hurt we need to go to God and release it. As we do God's love comes and covers that hurt slowly lessing that pain over time. A life time of going to him for his grace, love and covering creates that beautiful Pearl of our life and when we reach that great gate that is what we will present to him. Our pearl, Our Life created by him to be beautiful even in our pain. Realize that he is there for you no matter what. You are his "Pearl of Great Price".
9 comments:
"Pearl of Great Price" is a Mormon volume of scripture. Irony at its finest.
Wasn't it also a parable of Jesus? (Matt 13:26) Huh, I wonder which came first? It is too bad that you should waste your time mocking people who have something worth saying.
The piece on the Pearl of Great Price is not meant to mock anybody. It is meant to be a comfort for those in pain knowing that everything you go through in life has a purpose. Of course this is a parable of Jesus and an interpretation of that parable.
Sorry, but the pearl of great price is not the jewel created of all our sufferings that will get us into Heaven.
The pearl of great price is the thing that matters most in this life, entering the Kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ.
The pearl of great price is all about HIM and nothing about us.
The desire to have our sufferings work out some kind of a "pearl" was the horrible need we had for attention, which was terribly exploited and manipulated.
The pearl of great price is Jesus, Jesus alone, and His Kingdom.
May we all find it.
Sorry, I put the title of Pearl of Great Price on the post. Indeed, the parable of the pearl of great price is about the Kingdom of God. It is not about suffering. Thank you for clarifying.
DPR!
To commentor 7/30/06
Jesus definetly is our pearl of great price. But what did he purchase? His blood purchased us. To say that the pearl of great price has nothing to do with us is nonsense. It has everything to do with us, If it wasn't for God's desire to have a personal relationship with us nothing would need to be transformed, ongoing sanctification would not need to take place and Christ wouldn't of paid the price. We wouldn't need to ask for forgiveness of our sins on a daily basis. Our suffering doesn't get us into heaven it helps us to need and want to relate with our maker. Yes our lives are transformed and I am a precious jem purchased by my maker, Christ and I shall become more precious to him as he molds my life. Is not the kingdom of God made up of his people who have suffered and have been persecuted? Didn't Christ suffer in order for a "Great Price" to be paid? We are not speaking of a literal translation here but a spiritual one. Something that goes much deeper. If you cannot get something deeper let others who are hurting be blessed. If this was meant to be an exegesis than it would have said so.
You missed the whole point I was making, central to the argument, that our propensity for attention and significance from the leadership, rather than from Christ, allowed us to be manipulated, exploited and in some cases side-tracked from finding Christ and his Kingdom.
All of the things that were part of that, the personal attention of leadership, personal prophesy, personal significance, all the ways we were told that we were personally people with a destiny, and its not an empty wish.
All that may be interesting, and an emotional high, but I am no longer sure it represents Christianity.
As I read the original post, my thought was not to criticize at all, but I realized how much I fight with the culture of error that was so systematically inculcated in our lives, sometimes you have to step back and see it from a distance to really appreciate it. Somehow the post allowed me to do that.
If you are not there yet, don't worry, it took me over 5 years. Still not there, really.
As for allowing people to feel blessed, well, I hope that they are getting their feelings of blessing from their relationship to Christ and not from a blog!
And maybe that is part of my point. If we are still looking to get "blessed" we will find ourselves back where we were all those years, exploited and manipulated. Or are you still there? :)
To 7/31/2006 10:55 PM
Thank you, for that clarification. I was really not sure what you were reading into the original post. I do hope that people get blessed by this post because Christ is in everything we do and say. One word of encouragement can change a person's life. Before leaving LFF I had many freinds leave and I sat with them heard their hurts, pains, and deep wounds that were gushing. No words I could say would comfort them and keep them from bleeding. Their pain was deep a culmination of personal struggles along with an imperfect way of relating to others set up by an imperfect Church. I left however with a deep and sincere appreciation of many of the things I learned at LFF. It was where I was supposed to be at that time in my life.
As to the manipulation of God's people their is no excuse for that. The foundation for what I believe put people into labeled boxes was taught in Mirror. It was a formula for relating written by Dr. Larry Crab in which those "Christian Psychology" Classes were taught. I think our intelectual minds somehow want a system to analyze our lives and others, because it is much harder to just live by faith and let God than to create our own warped understanding. True, psychology can be helpfull in uncovering reasons why we do things but to base our relationship to christ on a precise psychological system is very confining to say the least. In a followup post I will include a post I wrote not to long ago that I would like more people to respond to; It contains the information for a book that aggressively critques the writing of Dr. Larry Crab and other so called "Christian Psychologists" Stand assured in Christ's love for you.
Previously posted at the bottom of the "Suggested Reading" Rant:
" Another Interesting book "Prophets of Psychoheresy I" by Martin Bobgan has an indepth study of the psychological theories of Dr. Lawrence Crabb (Remember the Volitional, emotional, rational and personal circles), Dr. Paul Meier, Dr. Frank Minirth and Dr. Gary Collins as well as a chapter on Psychological Cults. Get ready for a very detailed read. Highly recomended for those who got caught up "Enslaving the Gospel to Psychology" yet another great chapter."
Postscript personal story
found at the end of Suggested Reading". Buy this book on Amazon, you will not be dissapointed. Write and tell me what you think.
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