sickness

I spent a good part of my life chasing titles, money, earthly things; even though, at some point in my life, I came to the understand that love and family is more important, I still chased those earthly things. Even after becoming a follower of Jesus, I still chased those earthly things. I am 64 as of this writing. It is a sad situation that we need to make a certain quantity of money to live. The question is, of course, to what level of living? To be truthful, I’d love to own a large house on about 10 acres or more. The house would not many rooms, instead, bigger rooms. I like big rooms. I would live to have a dining room big enough for a table that would comfortably seat ten people. This is an Earthly thing. What I own is a 1300 square foot manufactured home in a very nice park. I am thankful for my home. If we pin our happiness on our desires, on our grandiose expectations, then we are seeking earthly things. I help led a church teen group to Mexico where we built a house for a poor Mexican family. This family lived under a small truck camper shell, and when I say small, I mean no taller than 24 inches. Every night, the husband, wife, and two children would crawl under the topper for the night. The kids were happy, they ran and played with their friends, having nothing but a ball. Everyday they had one set of clean clothes to go to school. They’d come home and change into the only other set of clothes they owned. Yet they were happy. The point of this story, we citizens of the United States lived in 1500 square foot homes, average size. Owned two cars, air conditioning, closets full of clothes, big screen TVs and so on. Our happiness is pinned on material possession. Even if you are a so-called follower of Jesus, I bet you still cling to your stuff as I did and still do. I am not saying we should give up everything, or am I? Let’s not forget what Jesus said to the rich young man. Matthew 19:16-24. Let’s look at this. First, the young man asks Jesus what he needs to do to have eternal life? Jesus tells him, “Keep the commandments.” The young man asks, “Which ones?” Jesus gives him some of the ten commandments. The young man stated that he was doing all that, “What do I lack,” he asked. This is where Jesus tells him to sell everything, give it to the poor and follow him. Of course, we know that the young man turned away sad. He could not part from his possessions. Jesus goes on to tell the disciples basically that people who cling to possessions for fulfillment simply cannot let go. Does God have something against wealth? I would say not since He enriched several people. I do believe the message means, “Are you capable of letting go of your possessions for God?” Many of us will say yes. I did all those years ago after the Mexico trip. But it wasn’t true. I was lying to myself. Back to living. We live in a nation and world where we must earn money to live. Some of us make a great deal of it, some not so much. The question is, can you, either rich or poor, let go of all you must follow the Lord? You see, this is the heart. I’ve had moments where I could but more times where I could not. But there is more. Trusting the Lord. It is like when God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. After all those years he finally had a child, a son and now he had to give it all up. He was prepared to do so. I have heard pastors and others teach that Abraham did this because he knew God would not allow him to kill his son. Isaac noted there was no lamb and asked about this. Verse 8 reads, “Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering my son.” Was he saying, no biggie, I know the Lord’s not going to let me kill you, or was he comforting Isaac knowing he was the lamb? We see that the Angel of the Lord appears and stops him, but the key here is what the angel says, verse 12, “…Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” Indeed, the Lord did supply a ram for sacrifice. I believe Abraham was ready to go through with the sacrifice. Otherwise, he fooled the Lord. This is the point of what I am saying, are you ready to sacrifice all that you have for the Lord? Ah, don’t say yes if you don’t mean it. Your tithes are not enough. Your time at church is not enough. Every ounce of your heart, the willingness to go all the way is enough. The Lord doesn’t ask all of us to give everything up. He does ask some of us to do so. The thing is, none of us know when or if the Lord will. We had better be ready to do so.