Fear God, and give glory to Him

For WHAT Are You Living?

Today my husband repaired a young man’s VW bug, and since he was still working over lunch hour, Rafael's mother Yolanda brought his lunch over.  They both sat with us at the table, and after the meal Yolanda kindly washed up a big stack of dishes for me.  While we worked, we got to know each other better.

In the course of the conversation, she asked me if I don’t miss living in the States.  She thought we are “suffering” here in Mexico, and could be a lot happier if we’d go back to the States.  But I objected – “We certainly aren’t suffering here.  We have so much – we are rich!  The Word of God says, ‘Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content.’  (1 Timothy 6:8)  Our Lord didn’t even have a place to lay his head.”

As Yolanda went on to mention, so many Mexicans, as well as people from other Central American countries, want to go to the States, (and do) because they long for a “better”, more comfortable life, with more things.  And for Yolanda, it was hard to understand why we would choose to live here in Mexico, when we were born in the States.

I was glad for the opportunity to share with her.  We are not living for the life here and now – our eyes are set on the life that is to come!  And when our goal is to please our Lord and to be in the place that He wants us to be, we are content and happy wherever He calls us.  We “desire a better country, that is, an heavenly”.  (Hebrews 11:16)  We are looking for “a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”  (Hebrews 11:10)

Oh, let us use this short life that we have to prepare for eternity – the life that is to come.  Can we, like the Lord Jesus Christ, say, “I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me”?

Our Lord commands, “Love not the world; neither the things that are in the world.  If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.  And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.”  (1 John 2: 15 – 17)  Let us live each day for eternity.  

Untitled Comment

10:06 AM, Friday, May 23, 2008 .. Posted by Anonymous

The problem is we ARE in the States where it is so comfortable and such a coveted place to live... we aren't any more content than anywhere else. A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he posseseth.
Joanna