This month, our meditation has been excerpted from the book entitled Extreme Devotion, compiled by Voice Of the Martyrs. In the following passage, the account of a Mrs. Lu Ying (a Chinese Christian) provides us with fodder for reflection and perhaps application:
And the words of the Lord are flawless. (Psalm 12:6)
"Take her furniture, and search the house for Bibles!" said the commanding guard. Tears filled Mrs. Lu Ying's eyes as she watched four Communist guards ransack her home.
"I found it!" yelled the guard. But just as the guard held out the Bible to give it to his commanding officer, Mrs. Lu Ying bravely grabbed it back from him.
"This book contains all I need to know about my dear Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and I do not want to part with it," she said passionately while holding her Bible close to her chest.
"Take her outside," yelled the commander. "We'll see how long she wants to hold on to her book about Jesus."
The four Communist guards took Mrs. Ying into the street, mocked her, spat on her, and beat her until she could no longer stand. "Do you still believe in your book of myths?" laughed the guards.
Through a swollen, bleeding mouth, still holding her Bible, Lu Ying repeated her statement of faith.
The guards grabbed an iron bar and smashed the bones in her hands, causing her now crippled hands to lose their grip. The Bible fell to the street and was confiscated.
Nearly twenty years later, a mission courier delivered Mrs. Ying a Bible. Her eyes filled with tears. She clutched it with her deformed hands and whispered, "This time I'm not letting go."
FURTHER: Many people have a full grasp of a half-truth. Whether they are atheists or agnostics, Buddhists or Hindus, all the dedication they can muster cannot transform their false beliefs into facts. Their sincerity is no substitute for the lack of substance. In contrast, Christians have the unchanging certainty of God's Word to back up their beliefs, and we know that God's Word is truth. We cannot afford to handle the Bible carelessly, though others come against us with all their might. Are you as tenacious in holding to God's Word as you hold to other valuable possessions in your life, such as money or your reputation? Let all else slip from your grip; yet hold onto God's Word at all costs.
A moment of consideration: How many of us, in our "days of innocence" remember singing this children's song in Sunday School or at Bible camp:
The B-I-B-L-E,
Yes that’s the book for me;
I stand alone on the Word of God,
The B-I-B-L-E.
The B-I-B-L-E
I’ll take it along with me,
I’ll read and pray,
and then obey,
the B-I-B-L-E.
How many of us have lived up to our profession of belief and faith, in the years that followed? It's been a chance to "hold on to [our] Book about Jesus and to be true to our Lord, the Word of God. The armor of God includes the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. (Ephesians 6:17) May we, in the spirit of Jeremiah 15:16, (not in the fashion of the guard having wrongfully done) exclaim "We have found it!" Indeed, God’s Word is described as a joy and a delight to one’s heart. (Jeremiah 15:16) How many of us have become seasoned workers and known the joy, and the delight of faithfully becoming familiar with the sword, learning its truth (Psalm 18:30) and wielding the "weapon" wisely (2 Timothy 2:15; Proverbs 2:1-6) and effectively in our own lives and in interactions with others? Lu Ying treasured her Bible and would not willingly relinquish it to the guard and commanding officer.
W. E. Gladstone once said, "I have known ninety-five of the world's great men in my time, and of these, eighty-seven were followers of the Bible. The Bible is stamped with a Speciality of Origin, and an immeasurable distance separates it from all competitors." It is a treasure in our hands, a treasure in our hearts, and a treasure to be shared. Jesus, in teaching His disciples, related a parable of the hidden treasure (Matthew 13:44), in which a man sold all he had to buy the field containing the precious object. He also told a parable of the pearl of great value (Matthew 13:45-46). In both parables the person described discovered an object of immense value--by which Jesus meant the kingdom of heaven.
God's Word prepares us for our acceptance into that divine realm, as it introduces us to Jesus the Christ, and bids us believe and be saved by his sacrifice on our behalf. God's Word itself is of inestimable value to help establish and grow our faith, but it is even more so a guide to our journey through life, a handbook for Christian living, and a map that leads to the narrow gate (Matthew 7:14). Yu Ling discovered through her travails, that the path to the narrow gate is hard, as it leads to eternal life. Many believers, today, would attest to that fact. This Christian life is not easy, and the adage is so often true: "I never promised you a rose garden."
As a handbook for Christian living, who should read the Bible? Consider:
• The young to learn how to live.
• The old to know how to die.
• The ignorant for wisdom.
• The learned for humility.
• The rich for compassion.
• The poor for comfort.
• The dreamer for enchantment.
• The practical for counsel.
• The weak for strength.
• The strong for direction.
• The haughty for warning.
• The humble for exaltation.
• The troubled for peace.
• The weary for rest.
• The sinner for salvation.
• The doubting for assurance.
• The Christian for guidance.
What are we to do to glean from the Scriptures the most they have to offer us?
Some years ago, respected Christian leader D. J. De Pree of Zeeland, Michigan, addressed the annual Gideon convention in Washington, D. C. In his message he pointed out that we must engage in eleven important spiritual activities if we are to realize fully the revitalizing power of the Word. We must:
- read it (1 Timothy 4:13);
- eat it—that is, take it into our very being (Job 23:12; Jeremiah 15:16);
- bathe in it for spiritual cleansing (John 15:3);
- look into it as a mirror to see our true self (James 1:23–25);
- meditate on it (Psalm 1:2; 1 Timothy 4:15);
- memorize it (Deuteronomy 11:18; Psalm 119:11);
- study it (2 Timothy 2:15; Hebrews 5:12–14);
- teach it to others (Deuteronomy 11:19; Colossians 3:16);
- talk about it (Joshua 1:8);
- obey it (John 3:36; Act 5:29; James 1:23-25)
- and sow its seeds of truth in the field of the world (Matthew 13:3–9; Luke 8:11).
The daily practice of these scriptural admonitions will keep you in a state of perpetual revival.
Revivals begin within each of us. May we resoundingly say, "Yes, that's the Book for me!" But...a word of warning: Sin will keep you from this Book or this Book will keep you from sin. It would be tantamount to a sin to relegate this treasure to a cold, dusty and hard shelf, and not stored in our hearts. (Psalm 119:11) It is this Book upon which to take our stand--to take along with us as we wend our way through this earthly life. Let us read, re-read (many times) and pray, and then obey our Lord as we learn of Him and abide in Him and love Him. He is the living Word, present at creation, Creator of all that there is--of you and me. (John 1:1-5) He is the Testimony chosen by the heavenly Father, and the Holy Scriptures are His revelation to us. "We cannot afford to handle the Bible carelessly, though others come against us with all their might. Are you as tenacious in holding to God's Word as you hold to other valuable possessions in your life, such as money or your reputation? Let all else slip from your grip; yet hold onto God's Word at all costs." Let us stand on the truths of the Bible, and treasure it as Yu Ling did.