A DIFFERENT KIND OF INHERITANCE

“Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints,…”  (Ephesians 1:18)

Have you dreamed about inheriting treasures from a long lost relative?  To be "in the will" would change your life forever!  Consider the rags-to-riches story of Jack Wurm.  In 1949, Mr. Wurm was unemployed and bankrupt.  As he strolled along a San Francisco beach, he found a bottle with a scroll inside.  He discovered that this "message in a bottle" was the last will and testament of Daisy Singer Alexander, heiress to the Singer Sewing Company fortune.

The faded paper read: "To avoid confusion, I leave my entire estate to the lucky person who finds this bottle, and to my attorney, Barry Cohen; share and share alike."  The courts discovered that she had written the note and thrown the bottle into the Thames River in London.  It had drifted across the oceans to San Francisco and reached a penniless Jack Wurm.  Jack inherited over $6 million in cash and Singer stock.

Similarly, God has sent us a "message in a Bible."  Within this book you'll find the "last will and testament of our Lord" with a different kind of inheritance -- spiritual treasures.  How will you respond?  Will you walk past it?  Or, like Jack Wurm, will you step out in faith and take action?  Failure to take God's promises seriously leads to spiritual poverty.  Jack's inheritance can't begin to compare with the spiritual wealth God offers His heirs!

-- Lenya Heitzig and Penny Pierce Rose in Pathway to God's Treasure: Ephesians

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REMOVING THE GREAT DIVIDE

When Mahatma Gandhi was a student, he became intrigued with the Bible.  Reading the Gospels touched his heart, so he considered becoming a convert.  Christianity seemed to offer real solutions to the caste system that divided India's population.  One Sunday he attended a church to seek the way of salvation.  An usher refused him a seat and said, "Go and worship with your own people."  Tragically, he left and never came back.  Gandhi said, "If Christians have caste differences also, I might as well remain a Hindu."

Ancient Israel suffered from a similar form of prejudice, a caste system of its own.  Religious Jews treated the Gentiles with scorn.  Gentiles were regarded as unclean -- diseased.  Any association with a Gentile was unlawful for a Jew. Israel mistakenly believed that Gentiles would not be included in God's family or inherit any of God's blessings.

Jesus changed all that!  He broke down the social barriers that separated Jews and Gentiles, and His life removed the great divide.  God invites both Jews and Gentiles into His house to worship together as one family… These two groups (and all believers) must learn how to share the wealth of God's great treasures.

"But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace; in His flesh He has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us." (Ephesians 2:13-14 NRSV)."

-- Lenya Heitzig and Penny Pierce Rose in Pathway to God's Treasure: Ephesians


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