MORT JAMISON was clever at working problems and he liked people to give him hard ones to solve. One day a visitor to his home wrote one for him.
“If one brick weighs four pounds plus half a brick, how much does a brick and a half weigh?”
He immediately set to work, biting the end of his pencil, as if that would help him. After a few minutes he said, “I have it! The answer is 12 pounds.” “Right! But that was easy. Let me give you a harder one.”
This time the visitor wrote, “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Mort read the question, and looking up, said, “That’s from the Bible, isn’t it?”
“Nobody can,” he said, “because there wouldn’t be any profit.”
He was right again. He knew that if anyone could own all the gold and all the diamonds that the world contains, he would be poor indeed if he lost his soul. Our souls are worth more than all the wealth of the world. And they will surely be lost forever, unless we flee to the Saviour for refuge. This is the only way to be saved.
Trying to be good won’t keep us from being lost for all of us have sinned. Only the blood of Christ can wash our sins away. That is what is meant by being saved.
ML-04/07/1963