Treasured
Today’s Bible Reading: JOB 22:1-25:6
Job 23:12
. . . I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food.
As we enter the fourth week of the New Year we must pause to evaluate how we are doing. For many, like me, we have committed at the first of the year to daily read the word of God. Some of us have stuck with it, but others have found that they struggle to continue. Somehow they got side-tracked. Oh the desire was there, but the diligence dissipated. Life happened. Things came up. Scheduled shifted. The commitment remained, but the consistency didn’t. Yet we don’t need to lose heart as it happens to all of us. We just simply need to pick up where we left off and start again. Consider our text today that hopefully will encourage you to continue to read the word daily.
Job’s affirmation exhorts and encourages us to treasure God’s word. Notice he recounts the value that he has for scripture, “I have treasured”. He was a man of great possessions, position and prestige. Yet what he valued was not earthly but heavenly, not temporal but eternal. Even here in his story he had lost every earthly possession. Everything he valued was gone, but his treasure remained, God’s word. Everything may be removed, but God’s word remained. Situations change and sustenance crumbles, but the living abiding words from the mouth of our Maker endure forever.
Notice also how he treasured the words of God “more than” his daily portion of physical food. For him knowing what God said was obligatory, not optional. He valued God’s word more than anything else. We too are challenged to do the same. We can treasure His word more than anything as we read and reflect on it each day. We need this spiritual food to satisfy our starving soul. Neglect leaves us spiritually malnourished. To miss a daily ration means to deprive our soul of its necessary spiritual nutrients. Like Job, we should treasure God’s word, finding that where our treasure is our heart will be (Matt 6:21). We should desire it more than the finest gold or the most valued jewel. We should find it sweet as honey to our soul (Ps 19:10). We should fight daily to make time in God’s word something valuable and essential for our spiritual development.
Today regardless of whether you have been steady or struggling with your daily time in the word, make this a moment of movement, either to continue or commence again. Reevaluate the value that you place on God’s word. Reaffirm it as something you highly treasure and what to know. Reflect on whether your soul is famished or fed, nourished or neglected. Remind yourself soul nourishment is just as necessary as your daily food. Renew your commitment to not neglect the necessary, but to daily nourish your soul by spending time in scripture.
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