The Devotional - A Look at the Book #747

by Jesse Abel

The Devotional – A look at the Book #747

Psalm 19:8b – What a joy it is to accept and respond to the commandment of God through the eyes of the soul who has been adopted by grace of God. The first four verses of Third John provide working knowledge of Matthew 22:36-40; ”To love God with your whole heart mind and soul and to love your neighbor as yourself”

Good Morning

When a person looks at the past to parallel some current thought, it is sort of like rummaging through a cluttered attic. Sometimes you never get through the first box you open. This can be good or bad, or as Mr. Monk might say; “could be a blessing or a curse”. It is good to know where all the boxes of cursing are; labeling helps! So what is it that I am going to say here?

We all carry past circumstances of life, stored in the attic of our mind. One does not have to go on a hunt though to have any one of those boxes pop open. For a good example; yesterday my wife and I were sitting at breakfast having a bowl of cereal. I was eating Cheerios and one of the little “O’s” popped out the bowl and of course I popped it into my mouth. Immediately my mind raced back to that of a five year old eating those little “O’s” off the table cloth.

These “O’s” taste the same today as then and somehow the retention of the taste, the vision of mom, the feet dangling off the chair kicking the wrung and the little boy all came back. There was my wife and I sought to explain, there could have been a hundred others… it was unexplainable, only I could experience the moment.

When reading the Word of God, I sometimes find verses of scripture that will do the same thing, for example; the first Psalm I memorized from the KJV was Psalm 1. I was going to memorize all of the Psalms ‘you know’! Of course I never got to Psalm 2. Yet every time I read or think of Psalm 1, I am reminded that over thirty-five years ago that Psalm (manna) was as tasty sweet to my soul as is to this day… I praise the LORD, His mercy endures forever.

Psalm 1 as I recall (with a little fill in help from the NKJV)

Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, or sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, who meditates in that law day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth fruit in its season, whose leaf there of shall not whether, but shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff that the wind drives away. Thus the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, or sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.