A Tank Filled With?
“He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts—” (Mark 6:8 ESV). Now how hard is that? Over the centuries, we’ve developed a growing need to collect more and more things. Our stuff, we believe, defines us and gives us comfort. It’s become the foundation of our security, some things physical for our physical world. This is one of those places in life, where we begin to “obsolete” the Word of God. We use justifications like: “That was then, this is now,” “Nobody owned much back then anyway,” “I worked my whole life for that,” or “I’ll need that someday”. We’ve concluded that we can take it with us for awhile, OK not to the next life, but while we’re here. The point the Lord was making was about our putting way too much emphasis on our possessions and not nearly enough trust in the provider of those possessions. Our things makes us happy, serve a purpose but no matter how much we collect, they don’t provide core happiness. They may keep us temporarily distracted but when we’re not using our stuff we still feel lost and often sad.
Recalling our Lord’s words here has made it easier, as we relocate, to discard much of the clutter in our lives. Not all as He directed, but we’re making progress. We’ve asked ourselves, hypothetically, if Jesus walked up to us today, as He did to those who became His apostles and said those words to us, would or could we comply for Him? How naive! The bible is the living word of God. He is walking up to us and delivering these very same words now. Once again, we’ve failed Him. We take some human satisfaction in the fact that we are making progress, but are disappointed in how much farther we must go. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5 ESV). This journey we’re on is long, if we stop moving toward our destination, we’ll come up short. If we’ve come to believe that we’ve already come far enough, we are leaning on our own understanding. Think of your 5th grader, who’s decided “I’ve learned enough, it’s time to quit school and live life,” how would you respond? Life is tough, getting through the narrow gates is even tougher. With the goal of eternity with God hanging out there, I’d like to believe that I’ve filled my tank with faith, gone the extra mile and followed His directions to the best of my meager ability. No time to waste!
JC Calkins with COMMON SENSE 4 UNCOMMON PEOPLE (Share today)
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