Love Overcomes Daily Devotion #24 3/8/16

Day #24

Larry Trotter

Words of Love

32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Luke 12:32-34 NIV

Overcoming the Barrier

Aristotle is credited with saying that “nature abhors a vacuum.” The idea is that in the natural world any empty space is required to be filled with something even if it is simply air. To a significantly less scientific degree we see the theory proven every time a basement fills with water after a heavy rain, when the kitchen table mom just cleared piles up with mail, books, and various types of outerwear, and when you have consumed about half of your iced tea, perfectly flavored with sweetener and lemon, and the server comes by and tops it off without asking. But I digress. More to the point, the same thing can happen in a spiritual sense. Whatever is pressing on our soul with the most force tends to guide our thoughts and behavior. To Jesus’ point, being overly concerned with possessions can lead our hearts away from God and toward the acquisition of more possessions. This passage follows his encounter with two brothers in conflict over their inheritance and a quick parable about a hoarding landowner. In both cases the fear over not getting everything they felt they deserved drove them to put possessions over people. There was a spiritual emptiness that the fear of losing possession quickly filled and created a response that was counter to kingdom purposes. Jesus follows by telling his disciples and others in the crowd not to let fear seep into the cracks and crevasses of their hearts. The way to avoid nature filling that vacuum is to let God fill it with kingdom things. Using Jesus’ example, this happens when we put others first. It is precisely the opposite of the attitudes and behaviors of the angry brother and the man in the parable. They were focused on themselves and fear turned their want into a need, then, greed filled the need at the expense of others. Jesus goes on to comfort those with ears to hear by saying that it is God’s pleasure to provide for kingdom-dwellers when they properly discern the difference between eternal treasure and temporary trappings.

Let me quickly establish that the point of all this is not to discuss the relative virtue and evil of possessions. Money is neither good or bad, it simply is what it is. The good and bad characteristics emerge from our attitudes toward money. But, again, that’s not what this is about. Money and possession do have tremendous power to create anxiety when we think we don’t have enough. And fear is what this is all about. Without another perspective to counteract the flood of fear, our spirits can quickly sink under the rising tide of anxiety that produces self-centered attitudes that often lead to behavior that pushes others and their needs away. This is exactly what Jesus doesn’t want to happen to you and me. However, when we seek the kingdom by putting others first and living out other godly values, our souls are filled with the kingdom God is pleased to give and fear has to look elsewhere for a vacuum to fill. Nature abhors a vacuum and so does fear. Fear becomes a barrier to the life Jesus offers when it trickles and oozes into the tiniest spaces in our hearts. But, love overcomes the barrier of fear when we are filled with Jesus’ living water and the brackish water of fear has no place to settle.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, I confess that I have spent too little time on the kingdom of God and a little too much time on the kingdom of me. Come and fill my heart in this moment and flush out the fears that dampen my spirit. In your name, amen.