Archives For satisfaction

Life is more than…

November 20, 2010

Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
(Matthew 6:25 ESV)

I’m guessing that Jesus would look quizzically at me as though I’m a bit dense and somewhat simple for asking the following question, but here it is anyway: If life is more than food, and the body more than clothing, then what is the ‘more’ that is so important?

Maybe to people living in first century Palestine it was obvious, but to us living in cultures obsessed with materialistic consumerism we are in fact cultivated to consider having stuff and comfort as the full meaning of life. We define ourselves by the clothes we wear, the stuff we own, what we fill our supermarket trolleys with, our waistlines and our earning ability. In our culture the idyllic life is portrayed as being healthy, having endless money to spend while not needing to work and having a beautiful house with a fancy car in a gorgeous location. There are certainly variations on the theme, but overall if you take away food and clothing – and by extension all the other stuff too if I’m that deprived – what is there to live for?

Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
(Matthew 6:25 ESV)

Put me in a situation where I have only the absolute minimum, most bland food required to sustain life and only rags to cover myself – what is worth living for? I think this is the most important question we could ask. At the core, what is the point of being alive?

Jesus talks about something more valuable than life even – your soul (Matthew 16:26). It is horrific to consider, but there is a possibility of losing your soul (Matthew 10:28). That is the absolutely worst thing that could happen to anyone, so Jesus tells us how to safeguard against losing your soul:

For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
(Matthew 16:25 ESV)

Could He put a higher price on it? Your life? In fact there is a higher price and He paid it – His life! If you embrace this then you can say with Paul:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
(Philippians 1:21 ESV)

It is good for me to have a stark reminder of what is important and what isn’t. There are many things that I elevate too highly in importance at various times, I need to remember that life is more than …

  • Food
  • Clothing
  • Wife
  • Children
  • Money
  • Job satisfaction
  • Sex
  • A house
  • A car
  • Computers
  • My blog

What do you elevate too highly and endanger your soul for?

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In Simple faith ,
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We are NOT the hollow men

March 20, 2010

I took a different route home on Thursday evening to pick up our car from the mechanic. Because it was not my usual routine I noticed things differently, like the people I passed looking wearied and beaten down as if they had barely survived the day’s work. The sky was gray and people seemed gray as well.  Most appeared to be barely dragging themselves along, though the few customers in the Apple shop were slightly dreamy while drooling over shiny new gadgets. The most animated were those leaving shops clasping newly purchased joys and the men excitedly embracing mid-life crises in the motorbike shop.

All this got me thinking of how we give the best hours of our lives to work and the resultant weary selves that we bring home to our families and to God (see Ecclesiastes 2:22-23). I know that my family get the remaining energy leftover from my days at work, then God gets the scraps after that.

Jesus calls us who are burdened to come to Him for rest (Matthew 11:28-30), when He saw people looking harassed and helpless He had compassion upon them (Matthew 9:36). The compassion of Jesus is not a useless ‘feeling sorry’ for people, in the gospels He is described as teaching, healing, feeding and even raising the dead out of compassion (Mark 6:34, Matthew 14:14, Mark 8:2, Luke 7:12-15).

I can state with confidence that Jesus has compassion for you (1 Timothy 2:3-5, Matthew 12:20) and just as He did very real things for those upon whom He had compassion during His incarnation, He will also out of compassion do what you need of Him. What you need of Jesus is unlikely to be more stuff or a better job, it is more likely to be the transformed heart and mind wrought by the Holy Spirit, grace in weakness, contentment in adversity, and fellowship with Him.

Perhaps you are like me and think, “chocolate and more money would make me feel better though.” Certainly they do, while the supply lasts and effects of overindulgence haven’t kicked in. God gives us Himself and the promise to always be with us (Matthew 28:20), on the surface this doesn’t seem to help my weariness after a hard day or the sense of drudgery and pointlessness that can engulf me at times. However, when I find the headspace to ponder the meaning that Jesus gives my life, that drudgery and pointlessness melt away.

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Image of Apple logo: iStock
Image of Harley Davidson: iStock
Image of chocolate: 123rf

In Life as it happens ,
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What’s in a name?

November 16, 2009

What is this blog about? And what do you mean by the name, “Words of Eternal Life”?

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In Blogging , , ,
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