GOD GIVES US HIS WORD
“Your Word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path.” Psalm 119:105
Where would we be if books were never invented? No doubt we would be missing many wonderful things. We have special buildings where we keep hundreds or even thousands of books called libraries. The largest library in the world is the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. It has over 158 million items on its 838 miles of shelves. Each day the library adds 12,000 items to its collection including books, magazines, music, and photographs. The library has 124,000 telephone books and the world’s largest collection of comic books with over 100,000 issues. The tiniest book in the library is “Old King Cole”, about the size of a period. The largest book is 5 feet wide and 7 feet tall. One of the most treasured books is a rare copy of the Bible printed by Johann Gutenberg, the man who invented moveable printing type.
Books are certainly an amazing invention. It is also an amazing blessing because of one very special book we call the Holy Bible. Did you know that of all the millions of books in the world, there is only one written by God? That’s the Bible. What an amazing book it is! In God’s book we read the story of our sin and our salvation in Jesus. There we learn how to live as his children, and discover how much God loves us.
God chose many people to do the writing like Moses, David, John, and Paul. The Bible says that God breathed his words into these special people. That is called inspiration. And of all the books in the world, only one will last forever. Isaiah 40:8 says: “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”
We are to study, cherish, and follow the words written in the Bible. These words are important. The apostle John once said: “These [words] are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). The missionary Paul said it a different way: “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). The Word of God should have a special place on our shelves. We should study the Bible, and learn from it. After all, the 727,000 words in the Bible show us the path to heaven.
Your Word is like a garden, Lord, with flowers bright and fair;
And everyone who seeks may pluck a lovely cluster there.
Your Word is like a deep, deep mine; and jewels rich and rare
Are hidden in its mighty depths for every searcher there. Amen.
From Living for Jesus by Reynold R. Kremer