Brown's Daily Word 6-17-09

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this new day, paved with His amazing grace and glorious splendor. We will gather for our mid-week service at 6 PM, with a hot and home- made delicious dinner( Italian cuisine) followed by Bible Study and prayer meeting. We will be studying from Revelation 3:14-22.
In a work entitled “The Wonders of the Deep,” M. Schele deVere tells us the following story. A dusky fisherman in the far-off seas of India once found a pearl in an oyster. He had heard of such costly gems, and sold it to an Arab for a gold coin which maintained him for a whole year in luxury and idleness. The Arab exchanged the pearl for powder and shot furnished him by a Russian merchant on board a trading vessel, who even yet did not recognize the dirty, dust-covered little ball as a precious jewel. He brought it home as a present for his children on the banks of the Neva, where a brother merchant saw it and bought it for a trifle. The pearl had at last found one who could appreciate its priceless value. The great man — for it was a merchant of the first class, the owner of a great fortune — rejoiced at the silent fraud by which he had obtained the one pearl of great price, without selling all and buying it fairly, and cherished it as the pride of his heart.
Visitors came from all parts of the world to see the wonder. He received them in his merchant’s costume in a palace plain on the outside, but resplendent inside, with all that human art can do to embellish a dwelling, and led them silently through room after room, filled with rare collections and dazzling by the splendor of their ornaments. At last, he opened with his own key the carved folding-doors of an inner room which surprised the visitor by its apparent simplicity. The floor, to be sure, was inlaid with malachite and costly marble, the ceiling carved in rare woods, and the walls hung with silk tapestry; but there was no furniture, no gilding, nothing but a round table of dark Egyptian marble in the center. Under it stood a strong box of apparently wonderful ingenuity, for even the cautious owner had to go through various readings of alphabets, and to unlock one door after another, before he reached an inner cavity, in which a plain square box of Russia leather was standing alone. With an air akin to reverence, the happy merchant would take the box and press it for a moment to his bosom, then devoutly crossing himself and murmuring an invocation to some saint, he would draw a tiny gold key, which he wore next his person, from his bosom, unlock the casket, and hold up his precious pet to the light that fell from a large grated window above. “It was a glorious sight for the lover of such things; a pearl as large as a small egg, of unsurpassed beauty and marvelous luster. The sphere was perfect, the play of colors, as he would let it reluctantly roll from his hands over his long white fingers down on the dark table, was only equaled by the flaming opal, and yet there was a soft, subdued light about the lifeless thing which endowed it with an almost irresistible charm. It was not only the pleasure its perfect form and matchless beauty gave to the eye, nor the overwhelming thought of the fact that the little ball was worth any thing an emperor or a millionaire might choose to give for it — there was a magic in its playful ever-changing sheen as it rolled to-and-fro — a contagion in the rapt fervor with which the grim old merchant watched its every flash and flare, which left few hearts cold as they saw the marvel of St. Petersburg. For such it was, and the Emperor himself, who loved pearls dearly, had in vain offered rank and titles and honors for the priceless gem. “A few years afterwards a conspiracy was discovered, and several great men were arrested. Among the suspected was the merchant. Taking his one great treasure with him, he fled to Paris. Jewelers and amateurs, Frenchmen and foreigners, flocked around him, for the fame of his jewel had long since reached France. He refused to show it for a time. At last he appointed a day when his great rival in pearls, the famous Dutch banker, the Duke of Brunswick, and other men well known for their love of precious stones and pearls, were to behold the wonder. He drew forth the golden key, he opened the casket, but his face turned deadly pale, his eyes started from their sockets, his whole frame began to tremble, and his palsied hand let the casket drop. The pearl was discolored! A sickly blue color had spread over it, and dimmed its matchless luster. His gem was diseased of some unknown ailment which maligned its beauty. In a short time it turned into a white powder, and the rich merchant of St. Petersburg, the owner of the finest pearl known to the world was a pauper! The pearl had avenged the poor Indian of the East, the Arab, and the poor traveler, and administered silent justice to the purchaser who paid not its price. There is another pearl of great price for which men seek; it is of immeasurably more value than any pearl of oyster making or any treasure of human wealth. We read in Matthew 13:44-46, "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it."
Pearls were the costliest of gems. If the kingdom of heaven is more valuable than anything on earth, what is it like? It is incorruptible, undefiled, unfading, and eternal. For today’s world, it is wholly sufficient and worth more than any golden treasure or costly pearl.
Jim Elliot, a martyred missionary to the Ecuadorian jungle Indians, wrote, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
The body of David Livingston is buried in England, at Westminster Abbey, near the Tomb of the unknown soldier, but his heart is buried in Africa, the place he loved. At the foot of a tall tree in a small African village the natives dug a hole and placed in it the heart of this man who they loved and respected. If your heart were to be buried in the place you loved most during life, where would it be? Would it be in your wallet, in your places of leisure, or in your places of worldly pleasures? Where is your heart? What do you strive for?
The Lord's invitation comes to us afresh and anew every day, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness".
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XVUVNqWus0
No Hidding the Facts
Taking advantage of a balmy day in New York, a priest and three other men of the cloth swapped their clerical garb for polos and khakis and time out on the golf course. After several really horrible shots, their caddy asked, "You guys wouldn't be priests by any chance?"
"Actually, yes, we are," one cleric replied. "How did you know?"
"Easy," said the caddy, "I've never seen such bad golf and such clean language!"