Don't be fooled
Pastor Don Porter, God's Church of Sucker Creek
for South Peace News
In Mark we read about a man who asks Jesus what He must do to be saved.
Jesus told him not to commit adultery, murder, steal, lie, defraud and honour his parents.
The man said he had done all this but Jesus said there was one thing he still lacked. Jesus told him to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor. The man was sad when he heard this and went away sorrowful as he had many possessions.
Why did Jesus ask this of him? The roadblock was the guy’s attitude toward his stuff. Jesus knew that it was the man’s possessions that held him back. That what he called his possessions actually possessed him. The man loved his possessions and wealth more than he loved Jesus. Jesus will not be in second or lower place in your life.
In Luke 12:18 we are told about a man who had a bountiful harvest and he realized that he did not have enough storage for his crops so he decided to tear down his barns and build larger ones.
But God said to him in Luke 18:20, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you! Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”
While we need to work for the future and save we should always remember that we may meet the Lord tonight. We need to live so we will not be ashamed that we have left unfinished work or a house full of used stuff (junk in other’s eyes) or unused funds sitting in a bank account that will not do anybody any good.
Maybe sooner than later we will have to give an account to Jesus for all our stuff.
In this passage in Luke there are six “I’s, five “my’s and four “I wills. He talks about my crops, my barns, my goods, my soul.
He was pretty self-centered. He never stopped to ask who gave him the fertile soil, who gave him the rain, and the sunshine, who gave him his health and who gave him the ability to think and plan. Everything he did was for himself and God called him a fool!
A lot of Christians get caught up in pursuit of prosperity and forget that God’s greatest desire is for us to pursue His Kingdom. This has caused many to get frustrated as they endeavour to prosper. As they seek after success according to the world’s standards they become frustrated when they don’t succeed. They don’t realize that worldly success has ruined more people than failure.
God wants us to pursue Him more than money and if He prospers you to keep seeking Him and give into His Kingdom.
Another story about prosperity is in the story of Job. Job worshipped God with all his heart and he was very prosperous. Satan told God if He took away all of Job’s wealth that Job would curse God. God allowed Satan to do this and Satan took away Job’s family, wealth and health.
If that happened to us we may have cursed God for our fate but not Job. No blame, no bitterness, no cursing. Instead, he said, “Naked I came into this world and naked I will leave it. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Why was Job able to do this when so many of us cannot? Since we have nothing when we are born then everything we have has been provided by God. We need to get that clearly in our mind.
Everything we have does not belong to us but to God.
Face it squarely. We arrived with nothing and when we die we will leave this world with nothing, even our children. We own nothing!
Are you ready to accept that? Our family, our wealth and our health are all on loan to us by God. Our job is to care for them, use them and release them. This is how we can keep from allowing our possessions from possessing us.
Don’t treat them as our treasures but God’s and thank Him every day for allowing us to borrow them.
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