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2007-03-16

Good Morning Dear Ones,

We've been looking at the difficulty of worrying about basic needs (food, drink, clothes) which Christ raised in MT 6:31-34. In (33-34), our Lord says, "Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what He requires of you, and He will provide you with all these other things. So do not worry about tomorrow; it will have enough worries of its own. There is no need to add to the troubles each day brings." Easier said than done? For those who haven't yet totally submitted to God and learned to trust in Him, it surely is. Admittedly, this writer came to total trust very late in life, so don't think for a minute that in writing this, I'm standing in judgment of anyone else. We used to kid around about how "it is built into Jewish genes to be worriers, particularly about money." That joke is a tragic cover-up and rationalization for lack of trust in God. Worrying will not add another day to your life. MK 4 :19 illuminates the issue of non-productive worrying. "But the worries about this life, the love for riches, and all other kinds of desires crowd in and choke the message, and they don't bear fruit." If we think about "choking the message" and not having our attention on the bigger picture of Kingdom of God, how will this impact our lives and our service to God?

If it seems strange to end the previous paragraph with a question, particularly one that only an individual can answer for himself, then understand that this writer believes that time in the age of grace is running out. There is an urgency for each of us to find our own answers to that question with God's help. To do this, it's necessary to see who is vulnerable to the devil's work of worrying. In the context of materialism for most people, the more material things we accumulate, the more vulnerable a person becomes to having his heart enticed away from the sacrificial love for our God. The story of the rich young man, in MT 19: 16-24 is an example of this problem. The young man came to the Lord Jesus, asking, "What must I do to enter the Kingdom of God?" When our Lord told him that he must sell all his material possessions, give the money made to the poor, and come follow Him, the young man looked sad and walked away. Then the Lord said in (24), "I repeat it: it is much harder for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle." In my own humble opinion, there are some very materially wealthy people who really do use their wealth for God's work. But, these people are a rare. For the most part, accumulation of material things is often done for ungodly reasons.

Who is willing to put himself to the test? This is another difficult question, putting the rubber to the road where our obedient faith is concerned. PS 139: 23-24, "Examine me, O God, and know my mind; test me, and discover my thoughts. Find out if there is any evil in me and guide me in the everlasting way." Do we really understand what are godly reasons for accumulating material things? I once belonged to a church in which a new minister was given the responsibility of shepherding this particular flock. Beforehand, Christ had been in leadership in this church. But things quickly changed. Fund raising began to enlarge the building-not always a bad thing to do if it's done for the right reasons. However, here it was being done for the wrong ones. The staff of this church began either leaving on their own or being let go, including both of the ministers that had been there before. The church split, and lives were turned upside down-not to mention the bitter confrontations and decisions being made without the approval of the congregation. This was surely not putting attention on building the Kingdom of God. Christ's words in LK 17: 20-21 reverberate in my mind when I recall all of this. "Some Pharisees asked Jesus when the Kingdom of God would come. His answer was, The Kingdom of God does not come in such a way as to be seen. No one will say, 'Look, here it is!', or 'There it is!'; because the Kingdom of God is within you." God surely does test our hearts. He knows our motives, our goals, our interests, and everything about us. This young minister who took over my former congregation in GA turned out to be an heir to a gigantic fortune-surely he is that rich young man who turned away from the Lord Jesus.

We must remember that Christ gave us everything He had when He went to the cross for us. Don't we owe Him all that we have? I believe so. My own experiences in the last nine years have shown me first-hand that when we give Him our all, He will provide our material needs for us. PS 37:11, "But all who humble themselves before the Lord shall be given every blessing, and shall have wonderful peace." It's not only the OT that tells us about His provision. We find it in the NT too. PHIL 4: 19, "And with all His abundant wealth through Christ Jesus, my God will supply all your needs." Can we trust the Lord to teach us the difference between wants and needs? You bet we can. Through all the financial turmoil that my husband, Peter and I have had in the last nine years, God has revealed to us what are really the most important things in our lives. He has taught us that our relationships with Him, each other, and all of those around us matter more than anything else. Those who have the courage to ask God to test and examine them, as the Psalmist in PS 139: 23-24 does, may get some bad news or they may get some wonderful godly affirmation. The important thing is that they opened themselves to the Lord Who loves them, created them in His own imagine, and gave His only begotten Son for them. If the results of that examination aren't favorable, God will love each of us enough to give us the opportunity and the direction to make the corrections necessary to conform to His will. The point is that we should not delay in opening ourselves to God's tests and to trust that He will carry us through any corrections He wants us to make.

PRAYER: O Lord, we stand before You in deep gratitude for the blessings You give us. One of them is the opportunity to bear our spirits to Your examination. Your intent is not to break our spirits or to ever judge us unfairly. Instead, You want us to come to You to learn to be good and wise stewards of any material wealth we might have. In addition to this, You desire that we should find careful and thoughtful direction in how to make the mid-course corrections in our attitudes, what we do with any material wealth that we have, and most of all, with our ability to trust You. Christ spent considerable time talking to us about material matters in His Sermon on the Mount. He told us to stop worrying and to put our attention on Your Kingdom [MT 6: 31-34]. He told us that You would provide what we need-a lesson in trust and in discernment between wants and needs. He shows us that we can't have two masters-Himself and possessions [MT 6: 24]. He told us that we should "store up our riches in heaven and not on earth" [MT 6: 19-21]. He told us to share our wealth with the needy without hypocrisy and that we will be rewarded for this [MT 6: 2, 4]. When we go back to Your words on finding true happiness in MT 5: 3-12, we find the value of humility, submission to You, and Your merciful provision. Yes, Dearest Abba, You really are the Father Who provides for His children, Jehovah Jirah [The God Who Provides] and Jehovah Mekoddishkem [The God Who sanctifies]. We praise and thank You with joy in our hearts. In Christ's holy name, we pray. Amen.

Next week I'm led to write about this question: Has the Lord given us a glimpse of the heavenly treasures He saves for us? I find in my life that inner peace is something only available from God. PS 62: 5, "Only God gives inner peace, and I depend on Him." Losing a large part of our 21 years of savings really hit me hard. But that was before God showed us His love and provision through the unsolicited financial help that has come to us from family and dear friends. I find myself standing in awe of how all of this came about. This enabled us to have a home, albeit it much smaller than the one we had before. He has surrounded us with people who teach us how to get along on less materially while becoming embarrassingly wealthy spiritually. I share my own experiences, because it's important to see the impact that God can have on a person, or in this case, two people. My sweet husband has also been given this wonderful blessing too. God brought me though a tremendous health crisis at the end of last year, showing me His direction that I should serve Him with even more depth, submission, and enthusiasm than ever before. God doesn't just do these things for Peter and me. He will do them for anyone who will submit to His will and not waste a drop of the blood that Christ shed for him. There is nothing special about Peter and me. We are ordinary people who have been given extraordinary blessings available to anyone who won't walk away from the Lord as that rich young man did. Remember this: We are new creations in union with Christ, and the Lord renews us repeatedly to conform to His image, so that we can have the rich blessings of knowing Him better [2 COR 5: 17; COL 3: 9b-10].

Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn

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