Encouragement

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesdsay August 17, 2005

I am one of those people who came from a family that experienced the Great Depression long after it was officially over. I hated the circumstances of my childhood, which as deprived as they were, in reality were light years better than the circumstance of my older siblings. I spent many years running at break neck speed to distance myself from any semblance of such outrageous poverty.

And then the Lord taught me some hard but very good lessons, one of which Don Boys in his excellent email paper 'Pastor's Helps' stated succinctly:

"Did you know that the abundant life does not depend on abundance?"

Some years prior to the demise of my lifestyle that was patterned more on the Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous than on that of Jesus Christ, God began teaching me the valuable lesson of my childhood and teenage years. The Great Blonde and I were taught that the love of Christ and our love for each other will survive in spite of as Paul said, 'the loss of all things.'

Paul teaches that through his walk with Christ he learned to be content in all and any circumstance. He writes from a prison cell in living conditions that were squalid at best, of having lived in his own hired house, with enough cash to pay for his Roman guards. He plainly says that he was content in either place. No one would deny, (Well, perhaps some health and wealth, name it/claim it groups) that Paul lived the abundant life to the fullest measure.

Even rocket scientists can understand that people are easier to control when they are addicted to things, to lifestyle. It is amazing to me at the pitifully small amount of material possessions that it takes to totally control a person or group if the fear of losing the said things or altering a life style is threatened by some person or group of persons in power. An article in major newspapers recently told of a few homeless people living under a bridge who were at the point of suicide rather than leave 'all of our possessions.' On the other hand, leaving all of your earthly possessions, meager though they be, is the equivalent of leaving all of your possessions though they be opulent.

The abundant life spoken of in the Bible is the inner life, the life that enjoys Christ, the will of The Father, the fellowship of the saints. It is an inside job. The riches of the inner man while on are earth are like those of heaven in that 'moth or rust cannot corrupt nor thieves break through and steal.' Unlike heaven we can and tragically often do forfeit this true abundance in exchange for greed, bitterness or ego satisfaction.

Henry Amiel commented on this truth of inner abundance when he wrote:

"The man who has no inner life is the slave of his surroundings."

So, how are doing? On the inside?

Larry Lilly Copyright 2005 Use with credit

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