The Poor Boy and His Treasure

There was once a little boy who used to play in the woods just a short distance away from the dilapidated hut that he lived in. His parents were too poor to buy him any toys, so he had to make do with whatever he could find. One day, he chanced upon a stone that was unlike any that he had ever seen. The polished surface of the stone glistened in his hands and winked at him each time he turned it around in the sunlight. It was his very own treasure and he loved it. The boy did not dare bring it back to

his home as there was nowhere in the hut he could hide it. He decided to dig a deep hole under some bushes and hide his precious possession there.

The next day, the boy couldn’t wait to retrieve his stone and ran to its hiding place as soon as the sun arose. But when his fingers finally found the stone in its muddy hideaway, it was all grubby and stained, without any of the luster that he loved so much. The boy took the stone to the stream and carefully dipped it in, allowing the dirt to be washed away. Finally, it was clean again and the boy’s heart swelled with pride at his coveted find. But all too soon, the time came for the boy to head home and he had to

return the stone to its hiding place.

Every day, the boy would rush to the spot where he had hidden the stone. And every day, he would find its shiny surface smeared with mud and he would trek to the river some distance away to wash it. This happened for a while before he decided to solve the problem. That day, when it was almost time for him to head home, the little boy took his stone to a small waterfall and wedged it carefully between two rocks, right in the middle of the steady flow of the waterfall. That night, the stone experienced a continual washing. And that little boy never had to wash the stone again. Every time he retrieved it, it gleamed in his hands, completely cleansed.

Lesson

What the little boy did with the stone initially can be likened to what happens under the old covenant. Each time you sinned, you had to be cleansed. But before you knew it, you would sin again, and you would have to bring your sin offering of either a bullock or lamb to the priests to be cleansed again.

Some believers still think that this is our covenant today, but let me declare to you that Jesus’ blood is far greater than the blood of bulls and goats. The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, bought us eternal forgiveness. The blood of bulls and goats in the old covenant could only offer temporal forgiveness, and that’s why the children of Israel had to keep bringing animal sacrifices to the priests over and over again, every time they failed.

Jesus, however, died on the cross once and for all. When you were born again, you became a living stone and God placed you right under the waterfall of His Son’s blood. Hence, every thought you have that is amiss, every feeling that is not right, every action that is not correct, is washed away! You are always kept clean and forgiven because of the continuous cleansing of Jesus’ blood!