We hear the expression "put your hope in God" a lot but it rings hollow because we know our inability to walk the talk too well.
Hope is a level of courage, even encouragement, that we draw from our belief in a person or object, often because of trust based on past experiences.
I believe that my car will help me get to work because it has done so dozens of times before.
I trust that you will keep my secret and you have always displayed confidentiality.
I have faith that if I continue to exercise, my body will change for the better.
I have hope that we will be married "til death do us part".
All well and good...even tedious.
I am not talking about tame, lukewarm hope and trust, I mean ALL IN. What does FULL trust in God lead us? Where do all our hopes take us from where we are presently? Can we even imagine?
I would wager we cannot imagine, and if we could, it would cause us a great deal of soul-searching to count the cost of this kind of commitment.
What if we give up faith in our own power (our jobs, our relationships, our desires and ambitions) that is all our striving to be what WE want to be, to achieve and to have- Forgetting all worldly security, and walking faithfully as he guides and provides.
"It is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God"
Does Jesus expect all his followers to be homeless, destitute vagabonds?
No, but he does expect you to release the trust and hope you have in the things of this world. To let go of the pride and independence you have because of what you feel you have accomplished alone (you did not) and what you have. If you really feel that you have been blessed and it is all a gift from God then you should not care if God requires you to get rid of it to be used by him again, should you?
"Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him,[a]and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.”
Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.”
And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
What is half of what you own in cash value? Think of giving that to the poor. I imagine paying people back we had wronged fourfold might bankrupt most of us. So what is the message?
We don't want to hear it, because it will cause us to turn our world upside down. I will cost us more than we are willing to pay. It is Abram and Issac on the mountain, Moses leaving to return to Egypt to free the Israelites, it is a sacrificial response to God's request. Could you lay your son on an altar and draw the knife? Could you leave your wife and head back to a likely death sentence?
So here it is: "No one is able to serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and he will love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and he will despise the other. You are not able to serve God and mammon."
(Mammon is often rendered as money, but that is inadequate- it means "wealth regarded as an evil influence or false object of worship and devotion" )
And we knew this, but we do not want to do it. That is the problem. We already know we cannot serve both as masters, both cannot share the throne, so rather deny ourselves we refuse to choose. In that, we have made a choice- mammon. It is a intellectual dishonesty, a spiritual compromise designed to sauve our self-centeredness.
Something has happened in my mind and heart recently that has me looking at the things in my life as pretty empty and meaningless. Where I use to think in terms of getting more, I began to think, "What is the point?" as I found myself less and less enamored of having my next big obsession. I find myself today (Christmas day) not having a single present to open and feeling content. I have not obtained a full trust and hope, but I stepped closer. I heard it said once that we must love people and use things. That seems to be a starting point mentally for me. I know I use to love things and use people pretty regularly. That happens less frequently now, and with the idea of two masters rolling around in my frontal lobe I find it being the bouncer at the door of my thoughts.
Something has happened in my mind and heart recently that has me looking at the things in my life as pretty empty and meaningless. Where I use to think in terms of getting more, I began to think, "What is the point?" as I found myself less and less enamored of having my next big obsession. I find myself today (Christmas day) not having a single present to open and feeling content. I have not obtained a full trust and hope, but I stepped closer. I heard it said once that we must love people and use things. That seems to be a starting point mentally for me. I know I use to love things and use people pretty regularly. That happens less frequently now, and with the idea of two masters rolling around in my frontal lobe I find it being the bouncer at the door of my thoughts.
Next time you have a moment of recognition that things do not lead to satisfaction and they stand in your way, don't push that idea aside...
