DRAWING NIGH to GOD....series..."Transforming Power in - God's Word"

Devotion from Minnie E. Dauphinee's book - "DRAWING NIGH to GOD"

Transforming Power In- God's Word 

"I rejoice at thy word, as one that findeth great spoil." 

Psalms 119:162 

A prince sent a gift to his betrothed. When she opened the package she was disappointed to find an egg of iron. She put it aside. Later she picked it up and began to examine it. Accidentally she touched a hidden spring, which opened the case and revealed an egg of brass. With growing curiosity she touched another secret spring, and found an egg of silver. When this was opened, there was an egg of gold. With eagerness she opened it, and to her great delight she saw a beautiful diamond. 

So it is with the Word of God. Those who read it superficially and put it aside can never know the beauties it contains. It is inlaid with gold and precious gems. A well-known religious writer has said, "The earth itself is not so interlaced with golden veins and filled with precious things as is the word of God."

 

One cannot expect to find the precious things in the Word of God by surface reading any more than the miner expects to find the valuable things in the earth through surface methods. God hides His gems just beneath the surface to test our earnestness in finding them. The efforts of the prospector for the gold that perishes may be fruitless. However, the poorest of us who search diligently for the precious things of God's Word will not be disappointed, for we have the sure promise, "He that seeketh findeth."

As the prospector prizes most highly the valuable things in the earth that he himself discovers, so we prize most the things we ourselves find in the mine of precious truth. Those gems received from sermons or from the reading of religious magazines or books do not equal those received from our own quiet searching of God's Word.

The best time to explore God's Word is the early morning. The thoughts that glisten like diamonds on its sacred pages in the early morning hours cannot be seen so clearly after one has glanced at the morning paper or entered into ordinary conversation at the breakfast table.

God's Word will exert its miracle-working power in our lives when we, like the psalmist, esteem its treasures more than "piles of gold and silver" (Psalms 119:72, Moffatt). We will grow more and more like Christ until our very nature is transformed. Here is God's personal word assuring us that this is so:
"He has granted us His exceeding great and precious promises, in order that through them you may become sharers in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is now in the world by reason of earthly cravings." _2 Peter 1:4, Weymouth.

"The revelation of Christ in your own character will have transforming power upon all with whom you come in contact. Let Christ be daily made manifest in you, and He will reveal through you the creative energy of His word- a gentle, persuasive, yet mighty influence to re-create other souls in the beauty of the Lord our God."