Well, it’s done. I’m all moved
into my new house. I closed last Friday and moved in that afternoon with the
help of my dad who came down to Murfreesboro from Indiana. It was one of the
hottest weekends of the year, but the rain held off thankfully. Most
importantly, it allowed me to get the grass mowed. I’ve already mowed three
times (twice on Saturday and once last night) and trimmed twice. I wasn’t
kidding that I’m obsessive about it! There’s plenty of work left to be done,
but the bulk of the heavy lifting is out of the way. Time to sit back and watch
some football. Can’t wait to check out Miami versus Florida on Saturday!
When
talking to people about purchasing a house, I heard one consistent refrain: “That’s
going to be a big change!”. I heard this
line from nearly everyone I talked to. It’s true. I now have a lot more things
than I had just one week ago. I have more space, more rooms, more bathrooms,
more floors to vacuum, more yard to mow, more everything.
I’ve
been looking forward to home ownership for a long time. I started looking at
homes three or four years ago when I was still living in Grand Rapids,
Michigan. Last Friday was a long time coming to say the least. But I’ve
realized one thing over the past few days: Owning a home isn’t really going to
change my life all that much. Sure, as I’ve noted, I’ll have a few more
responsibilities and I’ll have to block out time to take care of things for the
house. But will my life be drastically different? I’d have to say the answer is
no.
Don’t
get me wrong – I love my house and am thrilled to finally be moved in. But I’ve
realized home ownership won’t bring me the happiness or contentment that I
initially thought it would. I think my thought process has really changed in
the two years since I’ve gotten serious about my faith. Part of this new-found
faith is a requirement that God be the source of contentment in my life. I
often hear “contentment comes from within”. This quip is contradictory to Holy
Scripture. 1 Timothy 6 verses 6 through 10 tell us: “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can
take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content
with that. Those
who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish
and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of
evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and
pierced themselves with many griefs.” What a convicting passage for those
us who exist within suburban, corporate America! I know I see my reflection in the
mirror when I look at these verses.
The
biggest part of finding contentment in Christ is finding contentment in doing
his will. A few weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled “Certainty in Christ” in
which I outlined that the Godhead never changes whether in the past, future, or
present. We can expect an unchanging nature from God as revealed in His word. Likewise,
God has expectations for us! Luckily for us, He makes these expectations very
clear in the Word. Believe it or not, God’s expectations are simple – love god
and love your neighbor. These expectations are revealed to us in Matthew 22: 36-39: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment
in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first
and greatest commandment. And
the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” I wrote about ways
to foster an intense love for God in my post entitled “Spiritual Terraces”. I’ll
focus on “love neighbor” in this post. The theme of loving neighbor is a
constant throughout the Gospels. Perhaps the most harrowing instance of this is
contained in Matthew 25: 31-36 – the famous sheep and goats passage. These
verses are abundantly clear – If our faith doesn’t produce works of mercy, we
will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
As
I’ve written a few times before, the relationship between faith works is a
complicated one. As I’ve tired to walk closer to Christ, I’ve had to ask myself
a key question: Are the acts of mercy I perform done out of an overflowing love
for God? Or are my works performed with the aim of earning my way to Heaven? This is an important but very difficult distinction
to make. I’d argue it’s the key to finding contentment in Christ. Take another look at the passage from Matthew
22 above. The order in which Christ lists the two most important commands is
very telling. It’s clear that loving your neighbor is to follow from loving God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind. It’s impossible to truly love your neighbor as yourself
without loving and being loved by God – without being loved by God, we are incapable
of knowing what true love entails. If we don’t act in relation to others from a
position of loving and being loved by God, we can’t claim that we are truly
content with the security found in Christ Jesus. When we act in relation to
others with the aim of earning our way to Heaven we disparage all that was
accomplished through the cross on Calvary.
So
when you put your Spiritual Terraces in place, be sure to harvest the fruits of
your growing love of God. Living out
Christ’s commands in Matthew 22 through a position of faith doesn’t make you a social
justice warrior (SJW if you’re on Twitter!) – it is the ladder to eternal life.
Go ahead – boldly love your neighbor as you love yourself– your Salvation
depends on it. In doing so, you’ll find that contentment in Christ along the
way.
Be sure to follow me on Twitter:
@WordSacBlog
In Christ,
Kendal May
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