HIGHLIGHTING THE TEMPORAL VS. THE ETERNAL - LESSONS FROM ECCLISIASTES

King Solomon spent a lifetime pursuing temporal fulfillment.  He amassed wealth, collected beautiful women, and built monuments to himself.  At the end of his life, King Solomon looked at all he dedicated his life to and realized it was vain and worthless.  King Solomon was no fool, in fact, he is heralded as the wisest man who ever lived, yet at some point, he strayed from his commitment to God and dedicated his life to worthless, temporal pursuits.  Solomon started well, asking God to give him the wisdom to rule over Israel, holding a nationwide worship service and seeking to dispense righteous justice to the people.  One wonders how this could have gone wrong.

The mistake Solomon made first was disobeying God's command to not mingle with surrounding cultures.  Solomon quickly sought to form alliances with the surrounding kingdoms through marriage, beginning with marrying the daughter of the Pharaoh in Egypt.  Undoubtedly, this was a wise move politically and financially, but turned out to be spiritually destructive.  By marrying into different cultures, Solomon allowed his culturally diverse wives to bring their evil practices into Israel to the point that he mixed the profane with the holy and allowed foreign gods in the Temple of YHWH.  Solomon's heart became divided and he sought fulfillment in fleshly pursuits.  Many of the pursuits of Solomon would not be considered sin, in and of themselves, but in the context in which he sought after them, these pursuits became as the sin of idolatry.  Solomon put the his personal interests and passions before his dedication to God and the pursuit of holiness.

The lesson I come away with when reading the book of Ecclesiastes is that when we forsake the eternal for the temporal, we will always come away unfulfilled and hollow.  God has given us an eternal awareness and it is up to us to choose to sow in the field of eternal things rather than the field of the temporal.  When we pursue wealth for the sake of wealth or fame for the sake of fame or amass great possession for the sake of ownership, we miss the eternal perspective of Godly stewardship.  Wealth, fame, and material possession is not evil if these things are sought after and used to promote the Gospel of Christ.

The American Church is poisoned by the notion of the American Dream because we feel we are entitled to a certain lifestyle or standard of living.  We are called to pursue holiness, not stuff.  Solomon spent a lifetime getting and acquiring. Solomon admitted that he denied himself no pleasure, whatever he desired, he went for it, and in the end, he looked back on all he experienced, on all he acquired and lamented that it was all a vain chasing after the wind.  Solomon looked over a life spent enjoying worldly success, success only dreamed of by most human beings, and he despised it all.  It is not until we get the the final paragraphs of his writings that we see his point in writing - pursuing God and holiness is the only worthwhile pursuit, the only pursuit that will bring fulfillment, the only pursuit that has eternal value.

As I reflect on Solomon's writing, I recognize how much I am affected by the idea of the American Dream, the desire to live comfortably and acquire stuff.  Sadly, I realize that much of my effort is but a vain chasing after the wind that has no eternal value.  I have been challenged by Solomon's writings to have a more eternal perspective and to put the resources and gifts that God has given me to good use.  I have been challenged to pursue and promote holiness in my home and to focus on being a better ambassador for Christ outside the home.

We have been blessed with the Holy Scriptures, yet we so often neglect them.  Take a look at Ecclesiastes, pay close attention to the last chapter, especially, and see if God does not call you to have a different perspective on your life.  If you are feeling unfulfilled, if you are feel that life is meaningless, take Solomon's advice and pursue things of eternal value and let God worry about the temporal.  I promise you it will transform your life if you put these things into practice. May God bless and keep you as you seek to do His will in your life!

SPIRITUAL VALUE STARTS WITH JESUS

After listening to an excellent sermon in church this week,   http://overflowcollective.org/media.php?pageID=5   God gave me some great insight into His word.  The passage we studied was John 5 about the crippled man who was at the pool of Bethesda waiting to be healed.  The scripture states in the ESV  version that the man was an invalid.  I started thinking about the word invalid and it's different meanings and I thought of an alternate pronunciation that changes the meaning: invalid, accent on val meaning without value.  In the context of the scripture, this man had spent "a long time" attempting to do something that was physically impossible for him to do.  "A long time", trying the same thing and failing, over and over again.  This man had no plan, he never attempted anything different, he never enlisted any help, he simply laid down and waited for something to happen.  The scenario is that at this particular pool, disabled people would gather and wait for an angel to stir up the water and the first one into the pool got healed.  Now remember, this man spent "a long time" lying crippled, waiting for someone to pick him up and put him on the pool.  When Jesus came up to him, the man did not call out to Jesus or ask for help, Jesus initiated contact.

     Obviously, this man wanted his life to change but he did absolutely nothing constructive to help his case.  It can be argued that waiting for the waters to stir and going in the pool was a tradition, this man was simply following a tradition, with no hope of actually accomplishing his goal, expecting something to happen.  Where the  application for me comes in is I see this man as representing spiritually disabled people who follow the religious traditions of men or just lay around feeling sorry for themselves rather than actually meeting Christ.  The ESV version of the Bible calls this man an invalid and that means to me that his life was invalid (accent on the val).  This man offered nothing to society, he simply lay by the pool, uselessly, never utilizing the gifts or talents that God gave him. When we follow blind tradition or sit around waiting for something to happen without seeking after God, we are invalid, in other words, we have no spiritual value.

It is only when we recognize Christ and His desire to change us and guide us through His Spirit and His Word that we can see our lives garner spiritual value.  This also ties into something we discussed on Thursday night during Bible study.  Looking at Matthew 3 we saw the incident where Jesus comes to John the Baptist for baptism.  John hesitated in baptizing Christ as he recognized that Christ was greater  than he.  That is the beginning of spiritual growth, recognizing who God is and allowing Him to have an impact in our lives.  Our view of who God is cannot be shaped by our worldview, our worldview must  be dictated by who God is as He has revealed Himself to us in His word.

Horror author Stephen King, in an interview with NPR recently stated a belief in "a higher power" and he indicated that the design of the universe caused him to understand that there is a supreme being involved in that design.  If you have ever read a Stephen King novel, there is very little in it that would bring glory to God.  Stephen King acknowledges God but based on his writing, does not  allow his worldview to be influenced by God as revealed in scripture.  King, who claims faith in God claims Christianity, and raised Methodist, does not espouse evangelical concepts.  Instead, we see King using Biblical themes minus the redemptive work of Christ.   Much of Kings work celebrates good conquering evil by the power of good people.  While this is a nice thought, it does not match up to Biblical truth.  Man has no power over evil as demonstrated by our need for the cross.  So in a sense, the writing of Stephen King demonstrates an example of a world view shaping a belief in God and His dealings with man.  The sad part is, that the christian community is so starved for anything that entertains us and has even a modicum of faith value that we see the writings of Stephen King lauded in christian circles.  At one time, King was my favorite author but many years ago, I became convicted by his overt worldly and often sexual content,  I gave up reading any of his books once and for all.

The bottom line is that in order to have any spiritual value, we must allow our lives to be shaped by the truth of God the creator of heaven and earth, the redeemer of man and the lover of our souls.  A true encounter with God, a God influenced worldview, and the desire for and the allowing of Christ to come into our lives to change it and shape it is required if we want our lives to have any spiritual value.