(August 17, 2025) Norman and Margaret Moss share another precious and very timely meditation…

I had a friend who collected books by Richmal Crompton. He was especially keen to find first editions.  Sometimes it tested my patience while I waited for him to rummage through musty piles of books in second-hand bookshops.

It is one thing to love a book because of its contents, but many of us love the smell of a book, the feel of a book, as well as delighting in the pleasure of reading it. Most of us find that somehow books accumulate and yet to part from any one of  them is like losing a friend.

Despite all this, books can get entirely lost. For over 1,000 years. Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians was a lost book until rediscovered in 1890.

Margaret and I were meditating on 2Kings 22:10—
‘Hilkiah the priest has given me a book…’ and we felt the Lord was saying—

‘Soak yourself in my Holy Spirit but also saturate yourself with the words of holy scripture. Think often of the Sermon on the Mount for this is your pattern for life and your revelation of values and attitudes. In many ways the book teaches you a very different lifestyle to that of the world around you.  Be careful that you do not become seduced by worldly wisdom, for you are children of a different kingdom. It is not for you to boast, it is not for you to put pleasure first. I have indeed given you richly all things to enjoy, but the evil one seeks to sow tares among the wheat and lies to intermingle with the truth. 

‘You marvel that a man could be so evil as Manasseh, yet what he did was to disregard his father’s teaching and follow the thoughts, and ideas and values and opinions of others.  Other nations seemed stronger and more successful so he reasoned that their gods were stronger and should be worshipped in the vile ways  that  these gods demanded of their followers. 

‘It is so easy to become corrupted like that. But you have been given a special book… a holy book, my word… love it, listen to it, yield to it and obey it. For in doing so you will please me and I will be able to bless you and go on blessing you as long as you live. Love my word— it will teach you how to live and what pleases me. Keep my word hidden in your heart but also display it daily in your life. It will bless you all your days so do what it says and you will be blessed beyond blessing.

‘For my ways are far above your ways and my thoughts beyond your thoughts. But my thoughts will bless you all your days and will keep you in line with my desires and longings for I would have my children take after me and follow in my ways.

‘So come and meditate daily on my living word and see how it blesses you.’ 

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Norman and Margaret Moss — Link: charlesnmoss@gmail.com — pastored Queen’s Road Baptist, Wimbledon for over 30 years, experiencing charismatic renewal since the 1960s. Although ‘retired’ they preach and teach by Zoom encouraging ministers, churches and groups hungry for more of the Holy Spirit.
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