Freed to live without

I've been wanting to write this blog post for a long time now. It is has been on my mind and my husband's mind almost constantly for the past few months. We're blaming India for it...India is being blamed for a lot of things lately and they're all good!

Not long after our we returned home from India I found myself thinking much about things. I remember walking into the Newark Airport fresh from the other side of the world and suddenly feeling like I was looking at American culture with new eyes.

Our weak spots were glaring. I saw our materialism, I saw our self-sufficiency, I saw our arrogance and it broke me. 

It broke me not only because I saw it in others but I saw it in myself. I saw how I thought more about investing in making my house look pretty than how I could be investing in bringing the Gospel to lost souls around me. I thought about how many times I sat scrolling through Pinterest during many mornings when I could've been studying to get a degree that would open up a door for me to bless others.

One day I was reading and came across these verses:

"For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and clothing with these we shall be content." -1 Tim. 6:7-8

Could I really be content with only food and clothing if that was my lot? Could I really be content having no earthly possessions except what I wore on my back? The truth is we have become so deluded and worldly that we think we are entitled to a comfortable lifestyle.

"If it takes more than food and clothing and a relationship with God something about our relationship with God is lacking." Al Jackson

In order to live a life that we deem live-able we must have certain things. With some it is a job, with others it is a house and with others it is a savings account, but the reality is we are to be content with just food and clothing! You might as well call that nothing! I honestly am ashamed to say that this causes my own heart alarm sometimes.

Is this world of so much value to us that we cannot let it go and be solely absolved in the beauty and all-sufficiency of our Savior? Could we live in a "garbage city"in Cairo and yet feel and know that we are truly rich because we have Christ?
Can we identify with the Savior who had no place to lay His head? Can we identify with the thousands of believers who are each day hiding and running for their lives, without home and family?

What I'm not saying is that we must  subject ourselves to poverty or that we need to look for opportunities to humble ourselves before God (because this is pleasing to Him). Not at all! There is nothing we can do to gain favor with God as far as justification is concerned and every effort even as a believer falls into the deep chasm that separates the Creator from the created.
What I am saying is that we must be ready and willing to be content if God takes everything away from us. I want to be the kind of believer that can live out my Christian life even if I don't have a couch, a bed, or a home. I want to be the kind of person who can cheerfully go through life with nothing but my Savior to boast of.

"For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one." 

I want to be the believer who doesn't stand up and shout and fight for my right to home, liberty and "this-worldly happiness". All these things are destined to perish with the using and whether I have them or not is of little issue in comparison with the real issue. That is: do I have the everlasting and eternal treasure which is Christ Jesus? If we have Christ we are blessed indescribably.
We need to reprogram our thinking to stop prioritizing the material and instead prioritize the spiritual.

You see, when we start thinking like this then we are truly free. We are freed from the love of money, freed from the thorns and cares of this world that choke out spiritual growth, freed from the constant pressure to "get up in the world", freed from the pressure of pleasing men, freed from the idea that success is what hard work deserves.

No longer burdened, choked or stifled we can fully rejoice and fully live in the endless riches that are in Christ alone.

"they left everything and followed Him."