NEVER CEASE GROWING IN YOUR APPRECIATION

"How precious thoughts are!  O God, how much does the grand sum of them amount to!" -PSALM 139:17.


IT WAS a sensational find.  While repairs were being made on Jehovah's temple in Jerusalem, High Priest Hilkiah found "the book of Jehovah's law by the hand of Moses,"  doubtless the original copy completed some 800 years earlier! Can you imagine how God-fearing King Josiah must have felt when that book was placed before him?  Indeed, he prized it and immediately had Shaphan, the secretary, read it aloud. -2 Chronicles 34:14-18.

Today, God's Word, in whole or in part, can be read by billions.  But does that make the Scriptures less valuable, less important?  Of course not!  After all, they contain the very thoughts of the Almighty, recorded for our benefit.  (2 Timothy 3:16)  Expressing his feelings about God's Word, the psalmist David wrote:  "To me how precious your thoughts are! O God, how much does the grand sum of them amount o!" -Psalm 139:17.

David's appreciation  for Jehovah, his Word, and his arrangement for true worship never faded.  The many beautiful psalms David composed expresses how he felt. For example, at Psalm 27:4, he wrote:  "One thing I have asked from Jehovah -it is what I shall look for, that I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of our life, to behold the pleasantness of Jehovah and to look with appreciation upon his temple."  In the original Hebrew, the expression "to look with appreciation" means to linger in contemplation, to scrutinize, to see with pleasure, delight, admiration.  Clearly, David was a man of spiritual provisions and relished every morsel of spiritual truth that God revealed.  His example of appreciation is worthy of imitation. -Psalm 19:7-11. 

Next time: Appreciate the Privilege of Knowing the Bible Truth

The Watchtower, 2007