Acts 24; Value

Paul said twice that his driving force was the resurrection. Verse 15, "and I have the same hope in God as these men themselves have, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked." Verse 21, "It is concerning the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you today.” I don't think we really grasp that. We admire Paul's life but rarely embrace his motivation.

I think that today we treat the resurrection more like an insurance policy, i.e., it is something I want to have a guarantee for but really don't want to use because using it means tragedy has struck. We tend to live focused on the here and now so much that we come to believe this is real life. However, if I truly believe in the resurrection, consumerism becomes a stupid way to live. If I think the next life is the best life, am I really going to be so concerned with external looks, popularity and fame now? Maybe the litmus test is this: do I think about the resurrection when I purchase something? If a thing, any "thing", is only a decaying object for brief use in a temporary life, how much value can it really have? How much time, care and work does it deserve?

If the resurrection is birth into the real life and not just insurance in case there might be more, then people -- and only people -- become valuable because only people are resurrected into the life that goes on and on. It would seem the key to living Christ-like and Paul-like is to remember that fact. Every thing becomes a tool to build relationships; every wrong committed against a person becomes more significant. Treating people like objects of the temporary world -- judging people by what they do rather than who they are, treating people as sexual items for my pleasure, being too busy to notice people -- becomes absurd.

So now, how absurd is our North American consumeristic culture? And how utterly absurd to claim to follow the resurrected One and sill cling to the objects of this world? Shame on us -- shame on me -- for when we live like everyone else who confuse the value of people with the value of the temporary.

Romans 3:1-8; Entrusted

"You have been entrusted with the very words of God." Paul starts out the chapter with a perspective that it is an honor to be Jewish. Of all the nations, they had received special privilege. They had received the revelation of God.

Throughout the centuries people have died to preserve it, been tortured for putting it into the vernacular, and mistreated for mishandling it. Though many of those actions were unjust and did not represent the God who gave the revelation, it does indicate the value of the revelation itself. What other entity on earth has been held in such esteem?

As a young missionary I was placed my Bible under my chair while in a meeting. A visitor who was not a Christian regaled me for the action. How could the teach put the word of God on the ground? How could a missionary show such little respect for the revelation? I did not commit the error twice.

Yet I have to question if my attitude towards the revealed will of God looks any different from an unbelievers? Do my actions demonstrate that I cherish and esteem the revelation that God gave to humankind? Do my actions line up with my beliefs which I base upon this revelation? Or am I simply content to keep a book out of the dirt but not hold it in my heart?

Luke 16:1-15; people or possession

People or possessions -- which is my focus? That is what this passage seems to ask me. Even dishonest people are called shrewd or wise if they know their priorities. Money is made to be used, not loved. People are made to be loved, not used. Somehow we get this all swapped around in our world. In fact, Jesus said just that. What men value, God despises.

We value the creation over the creator, money over men, possessions over people. But God knows that only he and his people will last; everything else, money included is dust in the wind.

So what do I value? What do I really shape my life around? What drives me and controls my decisions? How highly do I value people?

Schweitzer was right, "One thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve."