More Precious Than Gold
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Imagine for a moment that a very wealthy and extraordinarily generous person decides to give you a onetime gift of gold with no strings attached. Envision a pallet stacked high with millions of dollars of gold bars delivered to your home and dropped off in your driveway. Unfortunately, before you take steps to protect it, thieves arrive and steal your gold. How would you feel? Please read more.
Endless television commercials today bombard us with the message that during these uncertain times gold is the wisest investment. The Bible tells a different story. It says, “Tell the rich in the present age not to be proud and not to rely on so uncertain a thing as wealth but rather on God, who richly provides us with all things for our enjoyment.” (1 Timothy 6:17)
Do we realize just how valuable our faith in God truly is? Do we take for granted the truths we have been given in Holy Scripture? Just how valuable is the Word of God?
Psalm 119:72 states “The law of your mouth is more precious to me than heaps of silver and gold.”
Psalm 19:10 says the law of God is “More desirable than gold, than a hoard of purest gold, Sweeter also than honey or drippings from the comb.”
There is no doubt in my mind that we would all take immediate action to protect a gift of gold like what was described above. We would be overjoyed to receive it and we would be wise to secure it. If we are wise enough to secure physical gold, wouldn’t it be even wiser to spend time reading, internalizing, and carrying out the message given to us by God in His Word?
Matthew 6:19-31 states the following, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”
The value of the Word of God is beyond measure. A quick synopsis of Biblical salvation history reveals the following. We are all sinners in need of being saved (Romans 3:23). It is only through Jesus that we can be saved from our sins (Acts 4:12). Jesus has overcome death and given us the gift of eternal life (Romans 6:23). Now I ask you, what could possibly be more valuable than that?
In Matthew 25:14-30, the Parable of the Talents charges us with the responsibility to be good stewards of what we have been given. We cannot simply bury our gift of gold. We should set about putting the Word of God to work in our life so that His gift to us will bear interest.
It is not likely that some generous man will drop off a pallet of gold bars in our driveway, but I would bet that most of us have fantasized about what it would be like to win a huge lottery. We have likely thought through the steps that we would take to protect the ticket until it was redeemed. We have also given thought to what we would do with the money and who we might share it with.
Shouldn’t we have a higher regard for the Holy Scripture of God than for gold or a lottery jackpot? Clearly God’s Word is more valuable than earthly wealth . Matthew 16:26 gives us this warning, “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?”
No matter how valuable gold might be, it can never compare with the spiritual blessings that God offers to us in His Word and in His Son Jesus Christ.
I will close today with a few questions for us all to pray over:
- Do we believe that the Bible is truly more valuable than Gold?
- In what ways are we squandering this valuable gift?
- Assuming we believe that the Bible is more valuable than gold, why do we spend so little time reading it?
- Have we simply buried the gift we have been given or are we sharing this good news with others so that it bears interest?
- The gift of salvation through Jesus was freely given to us by God. When was the last time we acted in turn to share this precious gift with someone else?
Heavenly Father the gift of your word is beyond my ability to comprehend. Help me to wisely invest this gift in my daily life. Give me the courage to freely share this valuable gift with others, Amen.
A SPECIAL NOTE
I want to thank the Crosier Fathers and the Crosier Associates from Onamia, MN for inviting me to share the Blessed, Broken and Scared retreat with them this past Saturday. Your hospitality was a blessing.
As always, I love to read your comments below as well as hear from you personally by clicking here.
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Hello friend ~ do you have any other Blessed, Broken and Scared conferences scheduled?
Libby
Thanks for posting. Unfortunately ever retreat that was scheduled for 2020 was cancelled because of the Covid pandemic except one. I did do one last week in Onamia, MN. I am still open to doing them anywhere I am invited, but most places are restricted by state laws or just very concerned about getting people together, which I do understand.
I have one scheduled for the first weekend in Lent 2021 in South Carolina. Hopefully I can schedule more soon.
Brian
As usual, many blessed thanks. (By the way, I don’t play the lottery, nor casinos, nor…). My worst possible day would be to play only one time, win and have to eat my words.