Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee (Psa 119:11).

All the wealth of this world cannot make you a better person. To be rich is not to be good; nor is a poor person necessarily a bad person. There is no correlation at all. A foolish teenager once boasted her boyfriend was a great guy because he had a flashy car and a pleasure boat. I never saw the connection.

Hear a riddle. What treasure is invisible, and yet people know who has it because of its positive effects on him and his life? What cannot be bought with money, and yet is worth more than all the gold in the world? What valuable thing cannot be grasped with hands, and yet many have seized it to their everlasting good? What wealth cannot be seen with the naked eye, but can be stored up in a secret place where no one can take it away?
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I will keep Thy statutes: O forsake me not utterly (Psa 119.8).

The gospel reveals a heaven-taught logic which none but sincere Christians really understand and embrace. It involves the relationship between grace from God and obedience to God, and it declares that God’s grace precedes our obedience, not only chronologically but causally. “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4.19). Without the illumination which comes only through the Holy Spirit, we are apt to think in just the reverse way—that if I will take the initiative to seek God and to love God, proving my love by obedience to His commandments, then He will respond by loving me as His loyal son. If such were the case, we would all remain in our sins.
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