January 31st Devotion

Become a Devoted Student of the Word
By Joe McKeever

"What great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?" (Deuteronomy 4:8)

Late one afternoon, I rested for a couple of hours in the home of friends in McComb, Mississippi before attending a church banquet where I was to speak. I noticed in the living room, shelves contained all the writings of Jan Karon, the novels of John Grisham and David Baldacci, and others. Looks like we read the same stuff, I thought. And another thought occurred…

The reason you won’t find those books on shelves at my house is after we read them, we’re through with them. We pass them on to family members or donate them to Goodwill. But one thing we never do is pull one out which we’ve read before to read again, just to see if we missed anything the first time through. And yet…

We do this with the holy Scriptures all the time. Every time we pass through a familiar chapter or well-known story, we find something new, something we had not seen before. It’s an amazing thing.

This is precisely what the Lord promised would happen. Matthew 13:52 contains the only mention of this in Scripture and it’s a keeper…

“Therefore, every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household, who brings forth out of his treasure things new and old.”

Imagine that. A homeowner who goes into his safe or a chest of valuables and counts out all the deeds, money, jewels, and other keepsakes he has owned through the years. But every time he does this, he finds new treasures. A pearl ring this time, a hundred dollar bill the next time, and so forth. He’d come often, wouldn’t he?

Jesus said a scribe–that is, someone considered an expert on the Scriptures–who gets saved now returns to the Scriptures that he loves and where he has found all these precious truths and insights. He finds them there, all the riches he has loved over the years. But lo and behold, every time he comes, he makes a new discovery. And so it is with opening the Word of the Lord.

There are so many reasons for God’s people studying and living in the Scriptures. Jesus called it our bread (Matthew 4:4). Job said it was more than his necessary food (Job 23:12). David called it a lamp unto his feet, a light unto his path (Psalm 119:105). Paul said it’s the source of faith (Romans 10:17).