When Jesus heard his answer, he said, "There is still one thing you haven't done. Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Luke 18: 22 (NLT)
The rich ruler went away sad. His money was a stronghold he was not willing to give up. It also would have been the primary area the enemy would have attacked him in if he had given his life to Jesus. Perhaps attacking this man with lust would not have worked. But greed and wealth? That was his area of weakness.
Going back to the verse from 1Peter, the enemy is not looking to play with us. He is looking to devour us beloved. I have heard the Christian lament that the "devil is trying to kill me." If he could, he would. All he can do is present us with something to consider. He presented King Saul with considering his greed but it was Saul who took the best of the herds he was supposed to destroy. He presented King David with considering his lust but it was David that sent for Bathsheba knowing she was married. It was King David that murdered her husband. On the other side, the enemy presented a 17 year old teenage boy named Joseph to consider his lust with Potiphar's wife but he chose to run away from the prospect of sin. These are all choices beloved. We have to make them every day.
Yet time and again, we hear Christians miss this point. Times of great prosperity are given correct credit to God but times of great adversity are somehow attributed to the devil. This despite Jesus Himself telling us that God sends His rain on the just and the unjust alike. This is where we find our key verses today. There are three lessons to learn from these verses. First of all, nothing is certain in this life. If you are looking for certainty, look to God. Usually our problem is we look to the wrong place for our certainty. We search for it in our career or in our spouse. We work hard for the same company for decades. We stay loyal, work overtime, sacrifice our health and relationships on the altar of career advancement. Then the economy tanks and suddenly we hear the dreaded downsizing word. Where we thought we had certainty is suddenly erased. Or we base our existence on our marriage. We sell out who we are for who our spouse is. We give and sacrifice our own identity on the altar of togetherness and suddenly after 20 years they claim to no longer be "in love." An option that we had not thought existed! Vows taken in the ghosts of our past are suddenly erased in the uncertainty of our future. No matter how many promises the world will make you, they are empty. Devoid of the one thing we seek, certainty. Not so with God:
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God. 2Corinthians 1: 20 (NIV)
The second lesson from the key verses today is that both the mountaintop and the valley belong to God. You should note that God has no problem with us enjoying our prosperity. There is a branch of Christianity that thinks this life should be lived in sackcloth and ashes and that is equally unscriptural. But the propensity in modern Christianity is to blame the devil for the storms we face in life. Take a look at Joseph. Sure he was a proud kid but he didn't serve to be sold into slavery by his brothers! He did the right thing by Potiphar and was thrown into prison for it. He did the right thing by the cupbearer and was forgotten as well. The devil didn't make Potiphar throw him in jail! The enemy didn't make the cupbearer forget him! The hand of God is in everything!
Now you may balk at that and say why would God allow Joseph
to stay in prison for 13 years if he didn't do what he was accused of? That is temporal
thinking. Eternal thinking sees the plan God had for Joseph. That plan could
not have been accomplished with Joseph living on the mountaintop those 13
years. He had to be refined in the valley. We are only walking through the
valley of the shadow of death but we cannot walk around it and expect to grow.
God does not prepare a table for us in the presence of our friends. We look at
the 13 years in prison and think that is somehow horrific but realize that when
Joseph got out he was 30 and he lived until 110. So those 13 years where God
developed him, led him into 80 years of prosperity! God had a plan for not only
Joseph but all of
The last lesson is to stop fighting God. Accept the way God does things. It will make the pruning process less painful. I love how the key verse asks if we can straighten what God has made crooked! We are fond of quoting the verse that says God will make our crooked paths straight but not so quick to quote this one! Sometimes the desert we find ourselves in is because that is exactly where God wants us! Now sometimes it is not. We do need to discern between the wilderness we choose and the wilderness God chooses. The key is in everything, does God receive the glory? Does the wilderness serve to bring you closer to Him, or is it resulting in you moving further away from Him?
Either way, it is not the enemy. God may have you going through a season and other times we have walked into the wilderness in protest like Elijah did after he heard his head was wanted by Queen Jezebel. Remember, search for certainty in God alone, not in this world. The times of prosperity and challenge are both from God. Lastly, accept the way God does things. Fighting against it will only serve to drive you further away. Leave the enemy where he belongs. Whispering into ears that take captive all of his lies and make them obedient to Jesus Christ.
