What activity do you find to be most useful for your faith and spiritual growth? There are many things that are beneficial. My word tells you to study to show yourself approved, and this oft-quoted verse refers to a valid method of spiritual growth. Yet it also teaches that by beholding me you are transformed into my likeness, from one degree of glory to another. So worship is transformative in a way that study, even Bible study, is not. Is the connection between worship and this transformative change obvious to you? It isn’t necessary for you to understand this. It is enough for you to take my word on it and do it. 

I taught that if you ministered to the least of these that you had done it unto me. This obviously applies to the poor. Do you think they are the only ones who could be considered the least of these? You are surrounded by people who are roughly equal to you financially with whom you do not normally interact because of differences in status, beliefs, interests, ideology, intelligence and education. Contact with them requires you to go outside your comfort zone and applying the principle broadly they could be considered the least of these for you. My word is clear about ministry to the poor in particular, but don’t limit your ministry to them.

I told stories about valuable pearls. One involved a pearl of great price that a man sold everything else he had to buy. He wanted it enough to spend everything he had. Another man found an even more valuable pearl that he could not afford, hidden in a field, and sold all he had to buy the field and get the pearl. You know by basic doctrine that you can’t afford salvation and your entrance to my Kingdom, and you have it by grace, as emphasized in the second story. Yet there is a common theme between the stories. Are you willing to spend everything you have to get something you can’t afford? You are bought with a price and are not your own. 

Have you ever suffered because of something that wasn’t your fault? If someone else set you up either intentionally or unintentionally does it fill you with rage and indignation? My word deals with suffering at great length and teaches you to bear it patiently instead. Even so, much suffering comes about through the random processes of time and chance, and this comes to all. There is another type of suffering that is suffering for righteousness that only comes to the righteous. Do you think you get enough suffering for your own faults and randomness? Do you desire righteousness enough to take on additional suffering?