The Gift

PSALM 1:1-6 (NLT)
1 Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. 2 But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. 3 They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do. ---- 4 But not the wicked! They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind. 5 They will be condemned at the time of judgment.  Sinners will have no place among the godly. 6 For the Lord watches over the path of the godly, but the path of the wicked leads to destruction.

This is a psalm of instruction concerning good and evil, setting before us life and death, the blessing and the curse that we may take the right way which leads to happiness and avoid that which will certainly end in our misery and ruin. [Matthew Henry].  There are those who follow God and serve Him. In contrast there are those who disobey God. Those who disobey will end their lives in ruin, while the righteous will be rewarded for their obedience. If every person were honest with themselves they would see their own path of life and where it leads.

 

 

In her book Amazing Grace, the writer and poet Kathleen Norris shares what she calls "the scariest story" she's ever heard about the Bible. Norris and her husband were visiting a man named Arlo, a rugged, self-made man who was facing terminal cancer. During their visit, Arlo started talking about his grandfather, a sincere Christian. The grandfather gave Arlo and his bride a wedding present: an expensive leather Bible with their names printed in gold lettering. Arlo left it in the box and never opened it. But for months afterwards his grandfather kept asking if he liked the Bible. Arlo told Norris, "The wife had written a nice thank-you note, and we'd thanked him in person, but somehow he couldn't let it lie, he always had to ask about it." Finally, Arlo grew curious enough to open the Bible. "The joke was on me," Arlo said. "I finally took that Bible out of the closet and I found that granddad had placed a twenty-dollar bill at the beginning of the Book of Genesis, and at the beginning of every book … over thirteen hundred dollars in all. And he knew I'd never find it." [Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace:  A Vocabulary of Faith (Riverhead Books, 1998, p. 95)]

Sadly Arlo had only glanced at the treasure he was given as a wedding gift. The evidence he had ignored this treasure was he didn’t know about a second treasure left by his grandfather. The money was valuable, but The Bible was even a more valuable gift. The Bible contains words of wisdom, words for living, words for the way we treat people and even examples of what happens when our lives go awry. Yes there was a treasure in Arlo’s closet that was missed out on for a very long time.

We must always be careful with God’s word to use it wisely. The psalmist above said it should be meditated on day and night. In other words we should commit God’s word to our heart so that it can direct our lives. God will give each person a purpose and God’s word will speak to them about that purpose.

However the greatest of all things The Bible speaks about is God’s plan of salvation for our lives. God knew man could not hold firm to all of His laws so there a second part to God’s plan. The second part or second covenant was one of love, mercy and grace where God gave His son Jesus Christ as payment for our sin. Jesus died a horrible death, rose to life on the third day to defeat death, and for all who place their faith and trust in Jesus their sin is forgiven. Don’t miss out on that plan God has for you. God wants you to live eternally with Him, but it’s your choice whether you accept or ignore His plan of Salvation and His gift of heavenly eternal life.