OUR AFFLUENT SOCIETY

Ruth Marcus wrote in the Washington Post an article that captured my attention.  It is about our ‘rich’ affluent society.   She writes concerning Ethan Couch, the Texas teenager whose drunken driving killed four people in 2013.  Couch was 16 years of age. Three hours after the grisly crash, his blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit for an adult.   The argument now is that he should be spared imprisonment because his over privileged upbringing had failed to teach him the difference between right and wrong.  His parents never set limits or imposed consequences on young Ethan.  His mother even fled with him to Mexico rather than allow him to face punishment.  He lived by the baby’s national anthem, “I want what I want when I want it.”  He believed that if you have the wealth, you make the rules.  Ethan’s parents are the enablers of this conduct.

Society seems to reward such behavior.  You can say and do anything you want as long as you are rich materially.  No limits on bad behavior nor any consequences on offensiveness, just do as you please, your money talks for you.

Jesus never taught such, in fact just the opposite.  Luke 12:15 “Then He said to them, Watch out. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”  In fact in this same chapter, the 12th of Luke, Jesus tells the story of the Rich Man who had an abundance of crops. His wealth was great so that he was ready to take life easy. “But God said, to him, YOU FOOL”   The sin of this rich farmer was his selfishness, all he thought about was himself.

God teaches plainly that it is the love of money that is the root of all kinds of evil. (I Timothy 6:10)     Our example is Jesus “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes, He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.”   2 Corinthians 8:9

As Christians. we are RICH because of the promises of God through Jesus.  The golden rule is not money but treating others as you would have them treat you.  Love God – love people.

DON’T GIVE UP

The swimmer, Florence Chadwick, on July 4, 1952, tried to swim 21 miles from Catalina Island to the coast of California. No woman had ever done it before. Visibility was poor and the water cold but she started out.  Millions watched on television.  Her mother and trainer were in a boat along side her giving her encouragement.  There were men in other boats with guns to shoot any sharks.  Fifteen hours and fifty five minutes later, after much begging and pleading on that foggy day, she gave up only a half mile from shore.  They helped her out of the water and asked her why she stopped. She said, “I didn’t stop because it was cold, even though it was.  I didn’t stop because I got tired, even though I was.”  She said, “I stopped because I grew weary of not being able to see the shore.”
Three months later on a clear day she came back and tried it again.  She swam it in two hours less than any man had done it.

I liked what she said that the reason she stopped was because she could not see the shore.

Listen to Hebrews 12:1-3  “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses; let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lost heart.”  

What if Jesus had given up, quit, stopped, refused to go to the cross?  There would have been no forgiveness of sins, no promise of eternal life with God, no hope whatsoever.  We would be miserable and yet in our sins.  Thank God, He did not stop but went all the way to Calvary to die for our sins.  Jesus knew why He came to this earth and that was “to seek and to save the lost.”

It is crucial that we keep our eyes on the goal of eternal life with God.  Fix your eyes on Jesus sitting at the right hand of God and don’t stop living for Him.  Don’t give up, don’t lose heart, it just may be that you are almost home.

SEEING GOD

The soldier of the First World War who said to Bishop McDowell just before going over the top, “What do you know about God, quick tell me?” expressed a universal longing.  The yearning for knowledge about God has flung itself like an echo from age to age.  Job cried out, “If only I knew where to find Him, if only I could go to His dwelling.”  Job 23:3
The disciple of Jesus, Philip, asked Jesus, “Lord show us the father and that will be enough for us.” John 14:8
This vision of God is the ultimate goal of every endeavor.

To see God is the whole purpose of all religions.  We must start with the conviction that to see God is a possibility that is within reach of everyone of us.  In fact, if we do not see God in the here and now, we have no promise of seeing Him at all.  But know as Bernard Lea Rice wrote in his poem:  “SEEING GOD IS AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART.”

“I could see God tonight, if my heart were right.  If all the rubbish of my soul were cleared away, my being whole, my breast would thrill in glad surprise at all the wonder in my eyes.  If my heart were right, I could see God tonight, and in the radiance of His face I’d flame with light and fill this place with beauty and the world would know the face of God down here below – tonight.  If only my dull heart were right.”

God took the initiative to reveal Himself to us. The Bible is not a history of man’s search for God but rather God’s search for man.  God has been pleased to reveal Himself through His living Word, Jesus and the written Word, the Bible.  We can either live by speculation or by revelation,  We must look in the mirror of God’s Word and see our true self and seek forgiveness and help if we are to live acceptable in God’s sight.

One of the greatest challenges we face is living according to what God has said.  We must hear God’s truth, allowing it to sink deep within our hearts, and seek to live accordingly.

God is always talking to us but are we listening?
Jeremiah 9:23 declares:  “This is what the Lord says: Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows ME.”  

“EXPLOSION OF NOWS”

It is that time…I have been working on my 2016 date book to try to keep track of all the activities of this brand new year.  It is bewildering to try to see all that is ahead of us. Don’t try,just take ONE DAY AT A TIME.

I want you to meet a good friend of mine.  His name is Mark Saunders. He learned about “living one day at a time” the hard way.  He was an alcoholic.  I ministered to him in Bluefield West Virginia when I ministered with Calfee’s Chapel Christian Church during my last two years in Johnson Bible College.  Mark would drink anything that had the content of alcohol in it.  I was with him when they carried him to a sanatorium in Virginia to be dried out.  When he came home, we talked about what he was going through. He told me that he could never touch another drop of alcohol.  When his cronies urged him to drink with them, he would tell them, “not today, maybe tomorrow.”  Each day, he would deny his cravings.  When he laid himself down to sleep, he would thank the higher powers that be for helping him get through another day without take a drink of alcohol.  He had to learn to “live one day at a time.”

That is not just the secret to alcoholic Anonymous, it is the teaching of Jesus.  Jesus said, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Matthew 6:34   In other words, we have all we can handle if we just deal with the issues of today.  Dr. John Dorsey said it this way, “We live in an explosion of nows.”  Now is all that we have.  We cannot crowd into our living one moment sooner than the moment we now possess.

Living has to be done on the installment plan.  No one has discovered how to live more than one moment at a time.  You don’t have to be a Christian a week, month or year in advance, just for today.  Can you be a devoted follower of Jesus for one day? That is all you are responsible for.  Try that and after that day is passed, try the next.

Determine with the apostle Paul.  “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 3:13