What Would You Pay?

In the devotion today from "Our Daily Bread" the author tells the story of a man in communist Russia who didn't have a Bible and so every night he borrowed his friends Bible and laboriously copied it by hand from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. He then poses an interesting question, "Imagine not having access to a copy of the Bible. What price would you pay to get one?" How many of us have Bibles that simply take up space on the book shelf and collect dust? How many of us have had times when we were asked to bring a Bible had a difficult time locating ours? Have we lost the significance of the Bible?

In the gospel of John we hear a story about people who were following Jesus that stopped following him because they became offended by what Jesus was teaching. (Funny how we have kind of "Disneyfied" the gospel so that it is rarely offensive to anyone any more.) After a number of these people leave Jesus turns to the disciples and asks if they too are going to leave. To which Peter replies, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." Jesus has the words of eternal life and those words can be found in the Bible. Yet on our shelves it sits, forgotten by many.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm just as guilty. There have been a number of times I've attended interdenominational church meetings and people from other churches showed up carrying Bibles. Why wouldn't they, they take them everywhere they go? I was embarrassed to admit I didn't even consider bringing my Bible, even though it was a church event. Why wouldn't I naturally bring my Bible with me at all times? If it contains the words of eternal life, is it not a priceless treasure?

I pray today that we would all thirst for the living water that is Christ. I pray that we would all hunger for the bread of life that satisfies. I pray that we would treasure Christ as the amazing gift that He is, and not let our Savior become something that is in the far backgound of our life.