When you awoke this morning, did you wonder where you find food for the day?
Did you question if you would have enough money to buy your medicine for your disease that you carry with you every day? Did you worry about where you spend your night sleeping? I think we would all answer no to those questions. But what if I asked you if you have said recently. “I am starving, there’s nothing to eat!” Or “I am so poor, I can’t believe gas is 2.50 a gallon!” Or “Our house is so small, I think we need to add on.” Ouch, I know I have said all those things. What God must think when we make such statements.
I am rereading Crazy Love by Francis Chan it is changing, convicting and putting me flat on my face before God. One of the biggest things I saw when I lived in Africa was the joy people had. Despite their situations they had joy. My friends from Zimbabwe left all they had there, their nice homes, and family to come live in South Africa so they could make a living because of the corrupt president that is literally killing his own people. They had every season to complain, they came to a foreign land, live in tiny shacks, many times don’t have food on their shelfs and are hundreds of miles from family, but yet they have joy. My friend has HIV, a rough marriage, lives in a shack and doesn’t have much at all, but yet she has a true geniune smile on her face. My friend Princess was dying from HIV, was weak and in pain, but yet she had joy until her dying day. Why? I have everything I could ever want. A nice house, clothes, food 3 times a day, a car to drive, my health and a great family, but yet it seems they have more joy then me. Could it be they have something you and I don’t?
“They possess very little of what “counts in our society, yet they have what matters most. They came to God in their great need and they have found true joy. Because we don’t usually have to depend on God for food, money to buy our next meal, or shelter, we don’t feel needy. In fact, we generally think of ourselves as fairly independemt and capable. Even, if we aren’t rich, we are ‘doing just fine.’
If one hundred people represented the world’s population, fifty-three of those would live on less than $2 a day. Do you realize that if you make $4,000 a month, you automatically make one hundered times more than the average persosn on this planet?
Which is messed up- that we have so much compared to everyone else, or that we don’t think we’re rich? That on any given day we flippantly call ourselves ‘broke’ or ‘poor’? We are neither of those things. We are rich. Flithy rich.”
Friends, my heart breaks when I read this, because this is us. How can we so flippantly read the passage in Luke 18? About the rich young man that asked what Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life and Jesus tells him to go sell everything he owns and give it to the poor. The man walks away sad, and Jesus responds “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Lk18:24-25)
WE are the rich! And unless you know how to put a camel through the eye of the needle I think we are in a serious situation. But that is not all, in chapter 14 He says, “Any of you who does not give up everything he cannot be my disciple.” (Lk14:33)
I know most of you have read this before, but this is serious stuff. Jesus isn’t playing around. He says rich people and any one of you who won’t give up everything can’t be His disciple. And he means everything. Not just a few things, everything. Time. College. Family. Boyfriends. Girlfriends. Home. Comfort. America. Security. The future. Stuff. Your very life.
“Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be of failure but of succeding at things in life that don’t really matter.”
So I ask you. When you gave Jesus your life, did you count the cost? Did you give him your WHOLE life or just whats comfortable? We serve a Holy God. He doesn’t want our leftovers, He wants everything.
So I ask you. When you gave Jesus your life, did you count the cost? Did you give him your WHOLE life or just whats comfortable? We serve a Holy God. He doesn’t want our leftovers, He wants everything.
Hi Ellen,
Welcome home, thank you for your service, and thank you for the challenge!!
You certainly have a perspective that very few Americans have. When someone is led to Christ, “No” we do not tell them to count the cost, and “No” we generally only give what’s comfortable in our lives. Yes, we often preach/live a cheap grace.
My question to you is: Are you advocating that we, like the rich young ruler, because we are rich, must sell all we have and live poor? Was this Jesus’ teaching?
Hope you go to Marquette for your cousin’s graduation, I so desire to visit with you personally.
Your friend in Christ,
Jeff Knight
1 Tim 6:17-19
Hey Jeff
thanks for the comment and the scripture. This is something I am still really being taught in, I don’t believe God tells everyone of us to sell everything, and go live on the street. Because there were other rich people that Jesus talked with and he didn’t tell them to sell everything like He did to the rich young ruler. Jesus calls us each to different things. But I do think that when Jesus tells us we must give up everything to be his disciple He is telling us we must not cling to our stuff or anything of this world. It truly comes down to do you love God that you will give up everything if He tells you too. Because God also uses the rich people to help those who don’t have. I think Jesus is strongly warning us though, that being rich is tough, because we can so easily become self dependent and boastful in what we have. Yet! Jesus blesses many Christ followers with wealth to bless others with. Oh, its such a fine line! What do you think?