Above All Else

April 6

Food. Clothing. Shelter. These are the basics. These are the essentials without enough of which human life cannot be sustained on any but a sub-standard level. In order to be viable, a life must have these three necessities. A person cannot even begin to plan an education or anticipate a lucrative career if he doesn’t have them.

Yet, there is another aspect to a man’s life that is even more crucial than are these—and he often lives the entirety of his life without being aware of his lack of it! A person may live in the lap of luxury, enjoy all the finest things life can offer, including fine cuisine, exquisite homes and jewels, abounding wealth and be without the one thing that is more important than all the others combined.

Does that sound preposterous? It does only if you are among those who do not possess that one essential that transcends all others. If you own it, you know its value and you esteem it above all else. That one thing is salvation through Jesus Christ. Perhaps the reality of that assertion is best summed up in Mark 8:36 where Jesus asks, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?”

In Matthew 4:4 where Jesus is refuting the devil himself who has just offered Him food, riches, and the hearts of men if He will but bow before him, the Lord says, “Man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Jesus, the Living Word, extols the written Word of God as the sustenance that is more essential than anything else to life—for time and forever.