The Thrift Store Bible

Sister Christine Masters, Full Time Missionary

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

While browsing in a thrift store recently, I was excited to find and purchase a  Bible published in 1905.  However, little was I prepared for the soul- stirring poem by John Greenleaf Whittier that was hidden in the Bible’s pages.

The poem spoke to my heart of Our Savior’s sacrifice for each one of us which was necessary to atone for the sins of the entire human family.   The poem also spoke of the Holy Spirit witnessing to me of the love of my Heavenly Father.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  John 3:16 KJV

“And what if my feet may not tread where He stood

Nor my eyes see the cross which He bowed Him to bear.

Nor my knees press Gethsemane’s garden of prayer.

Loved of the Father, The Spirit is near

To the meek, and the lowly, and penitent here.

Oh, the outward hath gone: but in glory and power.

The Spirit surviveth the things of an hour;

Unchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flame

On the heart’s secret altar is burning the same.”

The Atonement of Jesus Christ, which began in the Garden of Gethsemane and culminated on the cross, is the greatest evidence of divine love that this world has ever known.  Only through the grace of Jesus Christ are the blessings of Christ’s Atonement available.  “There is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah.”

2 Nephi 2:8

Our Father in Heaven invites all of us to come unto Christ and  partake of His salvation and the power of His redemption. Our Father has taught us to have faith in Jesus Christ, to repent of our sins, to be baptized, to received the Gift of the Holy Ghost, to keep all the ten commandments, to render continual service to others, and to endure to the end.

The words of a beloved hymn come to my mind when pondering the profound gratitude I humbly have for the atoning sacrifice of my Savior, Jesus Christ.

“I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me.

Confused at the grace that so fully He proffers me.

I tremble to know that for me He was crucified.

That for me, a sinner, He suffered, He bled, and died.”

What more appropriate time of year than this season of Thanks to express gratitude to our Heavenly Father for the victory over sin and death made possible for us through the Atonement of His Son?

Sometimes spiritual insights happen in the strangest places.  In my case, a poem in a Thrift Store Bible witnessed to me once again, through the Holy Spirit, of the amazing grace of my Savior Jesus Christ through which I can be saved.