GOD'S TRUE TREASURE IN MAN

'The Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His
inheritance.'--DEUT, xxxii.9.

'Jesus Christ (Who) gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from
all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people.'--TITUS ii.
14.


I choose these two texts because they together present us with the
other side of the thought to that which I have elsewhere considered,
that man's true treasure is in God. That great axiom of the religious
consciousness, which pervades the whole of Scripture, is rapturously
expressed in many a psalm, and never more assuredly than in that one
which struggles up from the miry clay in which the Psalmist's 'steps
had well-nigh slipped' and soars and sings thus: 'The Lord is the
portion of my inheritance and of my cup; Thou maintainest my lot,' 'The
lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly
heritage.'

You observe the correspondence between these words and those of my
first text: 'The Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His
inheritance.' The correspondence in the original is not quite so marked
as it is in our Authorised Version, but still the idea in the two
passages is the same. Now it is plain that persons can possess persons