What Is Most Worth A Life’s Desiring?
Good Morning Friends,
Today we look and the fall of Adam and Eve, the faith response of Abraham and Paul’s summary of the resolution to the problem of sin in the gift of grace offered by Christ Jesus. It all raises a question. What Is Most Worth A Life’s Desiring?
Scripture: Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.
Genesis 12:1-9 (NRSV)
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned—sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.
Romans 5:12-15 (NRSV)
“So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows. “Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
Matthew 10:26-33 (NRSV)
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.'” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 (NRSV)
Message: I do not know what you want out of life. Maybe you want to be happy but that is so general a statement that it means very little until you pin it down to specifics. A more interesting question, a question that perhaps you have never considered before, is about what pain you want in your life. The issue is about what you are willing to struggle for that is most certainly a greater determinant of how our lives turn out. Think about it for a moment and consider today’s scripture and meditate on what you are willing to give up to have financial independence and an amazing job and a great marriage and great body, successful children or perhaps something more important than even those desires. Friends, there is no reward without risk and delayed gratification. But we must be honest about what we want weighed against the cost of getting it. The choice is the pain of disappointment or the pain of discipline. Adam and Eve were ultimately disappointed having chosen to sin. The negative experience of Adam and Eve set the stage with the opening scene. Then in the acts of Abraham and Moses and Paul we see how meaning is achieved in taking a journey of faith. But it was by no means easy and the wait was longer than most would endure. They were all moved to risk in ways that were both painful and yet brought joy to life because there was purpose in the actions that had been assigned by God. There was obedience. Jesus’ leadership should guide us here in discerning God’s will, for joy requires struggle for the right things. What determines success is not what we want to enjoy. What determines success is what pain we are willing to sustain to achieve the goal. So friends, here is the message: Jesus’ obedience even unto death and the ultimate pain he experienced was so that we might have grace enough to survive the pain of life. The quality of our lives is not determined by the quality of our positive experiences alone but the quality of our love in the face of negative experiences. That is what God uses to impact history. Friends, if you want success you need to get good at dealing with negative experiences because that is when God gets involved at helping us get good at dealing with life. God knows the number of hairs on our heads. God knows that if we want the benefits of life achieved we also must want the costs necessary to developing the gifts we have been given. Friends, to achieve continuous improvement, we need to discover that there is a positive side effect in handling the negative. The negative is sin and you can only avoid its negative experiences for so long before they get you into trouble. The only useful answer to satisfying our real need is Jesus.
Pray we realize that a life worth living for Christ Jesus is a life worth losing. Pray we realize the difference between being in love with the results and being in love with the process. Pray we choose our struggles wisely. Pray we realize that living in love with a purposeful obedience to God is the only way to be successful. Pray we are truly honest about what we love and are not fooled as Adam and Eve. Pray we realize that our struggles determine our successes. Pray we think differently before we try harder.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 