It’s a good thing to have nice things. I’m all in favor of it, for me and for everyone else. You won’t find me confusing poverty for piety. That said, it was a wise poet who first wrote, “Mo’ money, mo’ problems.” The same is true not just of the money that can buy nice things but the nice things that money already bought. Our earthly goods are surely good, but they are decidedly not safe. Even if we manage to hold on to all our good stuff until the day we die, they will maintain their nature as earthly goods. We can’t take them with us.
What if, however, we had something infinitely more valuable than nice things? What if that thing was both earthly and heavenly? And what if it was utterly and absolutely secure? It is a good thing for us to consider the reality of the forgiveness of our sins, to contemplate the great price paid. It is a good thing to rejoice over the deliverance He gives to us. It is a wonder beyond imagining that He has adopted us as His children. What, however, should stop us dead in our tracks is that all these blessings are as immutable as God Himself. They can never be taken away from us, thrown away by us, diminished through our failures nor increased through our successes. His love for me isn’t grounded in what I’ve done for Him but in what He’s done for me.
Every bit of worry and fear that I go through stems from one of two great errors. Either I am fearful that some harm will come to my idols, wood, hay and stubble or I am fearful that something will rob, steal or tarnish the Pearl of Great Price. How bold might I become, how rich a harvest of peace might the Spirit bring forth from me if I knew, unshakably, the unshakable truth that He loves me by name, infinitely and immutably? How might I better love my enemies, my neighbor, my wife and family if I never worried whether my own emotional needs were met in Him? How much more brightly might the glory of His reign shine if I built my own house on the rock of His love for me?
It’s a good thing to give careful study to sound doctrine. We need it and are in danger without it. We ought always be busy about the business of looking more deeply into those things that angels long to look into. We would, however, be wiser to know that more important than knowing more is believing more. My failures do not flow out of insufficient information but insufficient appreciation for the information I already know.
Do you agree? Are you striving for more information for you or for more formation in you? Are you praying “Lord, explain it to me again” or “Lord I believe. Help Thou my unbelief.” Are you rejoicing in your intellectual attainment or in the simple truth that He has you in His scarred hands and will never let you go? Let us repent and believe.