Stella Nickell, a Washington state woman, a few years ago, was convicted for poisoning her husband, Bruce, 52, with cyanide-filled extra-strength Excedrin capsules because she wanted to collect $176,000 in life insurance.
She was accused of tampering with over-the-counter pain pills by planting cyanide in them, just to kill her husband. Her daughter, Cynthia Hamilton, who heard Nickell talking about killing her husband, invited the police. Investigation revealed, through fingerprints, that she had consulted four books about cyanide in her local library. Two of them she read, shortly before her husband’s death.
Nickell’s issue was one out of many, who killed because of greed.
Several years after the death of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who was king of Israel, many successive leaders took to evil to register their relevance in the scheme of things.
“For Menahem the son of Gadi went up from Tirzah, and came to Samaria, and smote Shallum the son of Jabesh in Samaria, and slew him, and reigned in his stead” (2 Kings 15:14).
In our today’s text, Menahem, the son of Gadi, who ruled Israel for ten years in Samaria, did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam. Pekahiah also followed the footsteps of his father, Menahem, and the vicious circle continued.
Curiously today, the situation is getting worse. In offices, there are those who have employed diabolical means to eliminate the lives of their colleagues, just because of position. Others use gossip and backbiting to curry favor and run down their colleagues.
Regrettably, this desperate quest for position has crept into the church. Some Christians now think that their position will determine their place in heaven, failing to realize that without peace with everybody and holiness, they cannot see God.
God has called us to good works so that our activities here will endure to the good of humanity and in furtherance of the gospel of repentance from sin and dead works.
No matter where we find ourselves, we must be a salt; we must be the light and we must leave a good footprint in the sand of time.
Thought for the day: A glorious lifestyle is a treasure for posterity.