DCLM Daily Manna Monday 29 May 2023

TOPIC: Living by the Word

READ: Psalm 119:17-24 (KJV)

KEY VERSE:
“Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live, and keep thy word.”
(Psalm 119:17)

DCLM Daily Manna Monday 29 May 2023 MESSAGE

The effort to defeat mortality by the elixir of life has been unsuccessful throughout human history. The ancient Greeks brought the idea of ambrosia, the food of the gods. They said if people ate it, they would live forever. Then the European alchemists of the Middle Ages worked feverishly for the Philosopher’s stone to offer human beings immortal life.

They all crashed in their bid to sidestep death because it was outside the ordinance of God. Only those who seek His mercy and follow His laws shall have eternal life. That was the prayer of the psalmist. Recognising this truth, he pleaded, “Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live, and keep thy word. Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law”. He harps on the law of the Lord as the source of his life. God’s word appears variously as law, statutes, testimonies, commandments and judgments in the writer’s prayer.

The good life in the world is scarcely about surrounding oneself with man-made prescriptions of how to live long or how to outwit death. They are bound to fail because they come from the closet minds of finite men. Despite the huge funds, research, man-hours and skills that have been deployed to gift mortal beings eternal life, such puny efforts have proven a pipe dream.

Living well and long here on earth, and receiving eternal life in heaven are not in the domain of any human sphere to give. God does it. He has unsparingly revealed how to attain it through His word. Having obtained this revelation, man no longer needs to pursue illusory doctrines about the good life or eternity. His is to receive the gospel, believe it and live.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
Eternal life is neither a human concept nor under man’s control.

BIBLE IN ONE YEAR:
1 Samuel 17-18