Let's Be Careful Of The So-Called "Bargains" We Find!

The story is told of a man who loved to collect antique books. One day, he met a fellow book lover who had just thrown away an old Bible that had been stored in the attic of his ancestral home for generations. “I threw it away because I couldn’t read it,” his book lover friend explained. “Somebody named Guten-something had printed it.”

The antique book collector exclaimed in horror, “Not Gutenberg!” “That Bible was one of the first books ever printed. Why, a copy just sold for over two million dollars!”

His friend was unimpressed. “My Bible wouldn’t have brought a dollar. You see, some fellow named Martin Luther had scribbled all over it in German.”

This man treated as worthless, that which was valuable, as did Esau in the Old Testament. As we recall, Esau was labeled “profane” because he sold his spiritual birthright “for one morsel of food” (Hebrews 12:16; cf. Genesis 25:24-34).

Only when it was too late to undo his irrevocable choice, did Esau realize that he had sacrificed the permanent on the altar of the immediate.

Beloved, let’s be careful of the so-called “bargains” we find, because many times, our culture places a high price tag on what is worthless and then throws away as worthless what is of eternal value.

Let us always ask the Lord to give us wisdom in discerning what’s worth keeping and what’s best discarded in life (cf. Matthew 6:19-20; Colossians 3:1-4; 1 Timothy 6:17-19).

—Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets