A precious pearl

You are an incredibly precious pearl…

While I was talking to God, He showed me an image of a very beautiful pearl. The pearl was enormous and sparkled with many bright colors. The colors moved like they were alive. It was really an incredible sight. God made it clear to me that these colorful, sparkling pearls represented the heart of each person:

more beautiful than we can imagine as human beings. Priceless to God.

The image I saw after that tore me up inside. It was such an extreme contrast to the beauty of the pearl and at the same time so real that I to bursted out in tears. God showed me what’s really going on with most people’s ‘pearls’: I saw how this beautiful pearl was covered by a layer of filth and dirt. The dirt dripped from the pearl and made the beauty of the pearl invisible. It was a horrible sight; dark, dirty, smelly. The sparkling beauty was completely covered up due to this filth. The contrast between the beauty of the pearl and the filth that covered it was immense.

The beautiful pearl is covered with sin

This is how man really lives: the colorful, beautiful pearl that God has given every person, is completely covered by lies, pride, greed, dishonesty, lust for power, vanity, impurity, fleshly desires, etc. When I saw how the incredibly beautiful pearl was covered with this horrible filth, it broke my heart. I couldn’t do anything other than cry for more than an hour. I realized that this sadness was a part of what God showed me:

I was feeling God’s grief about His beautiful people, who are lost in sin.

I realized also how much God wants to clear off the dirt that surrounds us and bring out the beauty of who we are, as a part of His beloved creation.

Beautiful on the outside, dirty on the inside

What mostly tore me up was the reality of what God was showing me. Most of the time, people look great on the outside. We know how to make a good impression on others. We drive nice cars, wear dressy clothes and live in tidy homes. We wash ourselves frequently and cover ourselves up with pleasant perfumes. We use the right words and pretend everything is great. But in reality our inner-self is covered with filth – no matter how great we sometimes think we are. Our pearl, representing God’s love, purity and righteousness, is covered with selfishness, lack of justice, pride, dishonesty, wrong desires, etc.

How beautiful we can look on the outside – while the inside, what represents our true beauty, is being covered by sin.

God’s intense desire is to completely cleanse us from all the filth. He wants to bring out His beauty in us. He wants to bring His light and bright colors of everything that is good and brings happiness, to the surface. He wants to let His beauty sparkle inside of us.

Restoration of the beauty

This cleansing starts when we completely give our lives to Jesus Christ, who suffered for all our sins and imperfections when He died on the cross. Because of the sacrifice of God’s son, Jesus Christ, the punishment for our sins is removed from us. He freed us from our sins. Forgiveness and freedom are results of that first step:

We must admit that we are dirty and ask Jesus Christ to cleanse us.

The second step is just as important: the Holy Spirit must change our inner self. We cannot just accept God’s forgiveness, we also have to be changed. God wants to cleanse us entirely. Change our thoughts, and fill our heart with His love. Only the Holy Spirit can perform this. That’s why Jesus told His apostles that it was better for Him to leave, because the Spirit was able to come.

Jesus was able to tell people about God the Father. He was able to die on the cross and take the punishment of their sins. But what He couldn’t do, was to change someone’s inner self. That’s why the Spirit of God is so essential for everyone that longs to be cleansed by God.

The most important thing the Holy Spirit wants to work out in us, is love.

The Bible tells us God is love. Love is the most essential hallmark of God. He does’t have love, God IS love. The bible also tells us that the Holy Spirit is the source of love. He can give us the love that is necessary to let God’s light shine bright and powerfully from within us. Not just a little bit, but clear and pure. Every day, He wants to show us how much the Father loves us.

He helps us every day of our lives to walk with God’s great love. He picks us up when we fall. We really need the Holy Spirit if we want the love of our heavenly Father to reign powerfully in our lives.

The word of God cleanses us

Besides being a source of love, the Holy Spirit is also the one who will lead us into all truth. He wants to change us into children of truth; He hates everything that smells like lies. He does this by getting us to read the word of God, being mindful and listening with our hearts. He uses truth to free us from the filthy, invisible, cunning and hidden ways that the enemy uses to influence us. The enemy’s lies are much more crafty than we realize.

The word of God is a double-edged sword that brings a lie out in the open.

The word also frees us from the lie. That’s why the Holy Spirit uses the word. That’s why the Word of God is also called the sword of the Holy Spirit. God uses His word and handles it the same way as you would a scalpel: it cuts deep and sometimes is very painful, but brings to the surface the invisible lies, fears, prejudices, complexities, pain, etc. that cover our beauty.

The word of God is an instrument that the Holy Spirit uses to free us.

Please allow God to cut you with the sharpness of His word, to purify you. Do not run from the depth of God’s word. Do not be afraid of the pain that comes with the cleansing. It’s essential. How the word of God comes to you can vary. God speaks in a thousand different ways: through the bible, through friends, enemies, family members, acquaintances, dreams, thoughts, convictions, and through everyday situations…..

God speaks every day. He’s unstoppable…. If you are willing to listen, stop being busy, make time to come to Him and listen to what He wants to tell you, you will see the renewing power of God’s word recover you and make you stronger and healthier.

God wants to penetrate you. He wants to purify you.

He wants to free the beauty captured by your sins, and make it visible to the world that surrounds you. He wants to show you to other people as a sparkling pearl. Filled with him.

Do you want this?

Important bible verses about purity:

So that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe. (Philippians 2:15)

And to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:27)

How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. (Psalm 119:9)

Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. (2 Timothy 2:22)

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27)

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.  (John 16:13)

For the upright will live in the land, and the blameless will remain in it. (Proverbs 2:21)

Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. (John 17:17)