I. The first thought that comes out of the words before us is this: All true religion has its very heart in deliberately choosing God as our supreme good. (1) The highest form of possession even of things is when they minister to our thought, to our emotion, to our moral and intellectual growth. We possess even them really according as we know them and hold communion with them. But when we get up into the regions of persons, we possess them in the measure in which we understand them, and sympathise with them, and love them. A friend or a lover owns the heart that he or she loves, and which loves back again; and not otherwise do we possess God. (2) This possession of God involves, and is possible only by, a deliberate act of renunciation. There must be a giving up of the material and the created if there is to be a possession of the Divine and the heavenly. Remember that nothing less than these are Christianity: the conviction that the world is second, and not first; that God is best, love is best, truth is best, knowledge of Him is best, likeness to Him is best, the willingness to surrender all if it come in contest with His supreme sweetness.
II. Notice the second point that is here, viz., that this possession is as sure as God can make it. "Thou maintainest my lot." (1) The Divine power surrounds the man who chooses God for his heritage, and nothing shall take that heritage from him. (2) He will help us, so that no temptations shall have power to make us rob ourselvesof our treasure.
III. He who thus elects to find his treasure and delight in God is satisfied with his choice. "The lines are fallen in pleasant places; yea, the heritage is goodly to me."
A. Maclaren, A Year's Ministry,1st series, p. 205.
References: Psalms 16:6. J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., pp. 289, 312, 321, 376, 387; W. M. Statham, Ibid.,vol. xxv., p. 180.