Month: September 2023

Yesterday we flew back from Georgia after dropping off and saying goodbye to our oldest Bella for her 9-month missions’ trip around the world with Worldrace. Of the 44 people going, Bella is joined by 4 of her classmates from her Senior class who are also doing this for their Gap Year. It was a special treat to spend time with the 4 families that were there with us. What a huge support it was and will be as we have our own journey of sending these precious kids of ours off. (That’s right, for the next 6 weeks Bella and the rest of the ‘Racers’ will be living in tents.

My quiet time today was on Luke 12:35-40. Jesus is talking to the disciples about ‘being ready’. He uses that imagery of servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding celebration where they are ready to open his door and serve him when he returns. As you read in my Post Title today, Jesus says, “Keep your loins girded and your lamps burning.”.

Loins being girded denotes the aspect of preparedness. In the eastern cultures of that day, you would do this so you could work or fight. The graphic below is the best one I could find in short order. Step 6 could also be stuffing the extra material in the belt versus tying it together.

The reason this is important is because Jesus is saying that we must be in a posture that is ready for action. We must have our hearts and minds prepared for the arrival of our Savior. Not only that but we must have our ‘lamps burning’. Many times, our testimony is talked about as a lamp to the world; being a light in the darkness. So, we are to be ready and a lamp to the world when Jesus comes. Jesus then also tells us that when the master comes and finds his servants this way (prepared and lamps burning), he turns the tables and serves them. This unexpected twist cannot be taken from life but is something extra provided for God’s people. But then the reward of God’s people is never commonplace: it is always the unexpected.

For who is the greater, the one who reclines at table (the master), or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am in your midst as One Who serves.

Luke 22:27 [AMP]

One of the things I have heard in the past and heard it again this weekend is that God’s Character makes Him predictable…but, when God acts it is very unpredictable. I would also say that the ways that God’s bestows earthly rewards/blessings are unpredictable as well.

Application:

I must be ready. One of the biggest helps I have on staying on the right path and living an upright life is that I would be mortified if I was both unprepared and sinning the moment the Lord returned. I don’t know the moment He will come back but I want to be living a life of Christ-Following-Action and my lamp lit when I see His face coming through the clouds on that day.

“Do not be seized with alarm and struck with fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom!  Sell what you possess and give donations to the poor; provide yourselves with purses and handbags that do not grow old, an unfailing and inexhaustible treasure in the heavens, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Luke 12:32-34 [AMP]

The BITE in yesterday’s post was that we should “Seek the Kingdon” and now we are seeing here that “its the Father’s good pleasure to give us the Kingdom”.  Then Jesus tells us what that looks like.

Jesus again discussing the comparison of earthly and heavenly riches.  He teaches His followers to concentrate on the ‘real’ riches, Heavenly Treasure.  This can look like selling our earthly possessions or even giving them or the proceeds away.  However, we should not take away a message that Jesus requires all His followers to sell all their possessions.  Jesus was entertained by Martha and He later set watch of His own mother under the roof of one of His disciples.  Jesus is not set on the mission to create a class of holy paupers; this would be to sin against love because those holy paupers would become a load on their hardworking neighbors.  In neither one of the cases of Martha or the disciple that took His mother in, did Jesus rebuke His follower because they had possessions.  Jesus and His followers had money to buy food and give alms. 

I think it is pretty clear that Jesus is not excluding private ownership; but he is placing emphasis on the fact that believers must not be dominated by their possessions.

“Trust in riches prevents trust in God.”

When ‘trust in riches’ takes place, the things we own become a deadly barrier to the life Jesus wants for us (His Kingdom). Real riches are a treasure that does not fail, found in purses that do not grow old. These riches are safe from thieves, from rot, and from moths (which eat away at some forms of earthly riches, e.g. clothes). The heart and the treasure go together. Anyone’s heart, the concentration of his energies and interests, is always with his treasure; in other words, the things he values most.

Application:

If I look deep down -> what do I treasure?  What possessions do I have that I don’t have loose hands with?  What earthly material am I chasing? Having just sent Bella off for a 9-month missions trip where all she has fits in a 65-liter backpack, can I grow to a place that when she returns, I too have made movement to have Kingdom.