“If ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me, above all people.” - Exodus 19:5 Have you that spiritual conviction that you are one of a heavenly people, God’s chosen people, a people that have been pulled out by God’s mighty hand, who have become a heavenly peculiar treasure. Mark that word ‘peculiar treasure’. Man’s standard of choice is based on rank or position or wealth or fame. But God has a different standard. Even though we are as filthy rags, ruined by sin and absolutely worthless and useless, yet He says: ‘O my son, my daughter, I want you to be my peculiar treasure’. He knows what He can make of you and me for eternity, if only we place ourselves in His hands. So do not resist God’s hand, when it is His desire to choose you. In Psalm 106:4,5, the psalmist prays: ‘That I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation and glory with thine inheritance.’ All these things are exemplified in the life of Stephen, who, in becoming God’s chosen vessel brought to many heavenly joy, and, as a believer, gloried with all the saints in the great heavenly inheritance. In the sight of God one soul is of more value than all the wealth of the whole world. In this way God teaches the spiritual meaning of heavenly truths brought out in the life of Stephen, an unknown person, about whose family, native village, country or qualifications we know nothing, but who in the eyes of God was most precious. |
