“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?’”** Hebrews 13:5-6 (NIV)**
Placing our faith in anything or anyone besides the Lord Jesus is as resting on a spider web. God often proves this to His children by embittering their comforts so that Christ shines all the more sweeter. He is the “Friend that sticks closer than a brother,” Scripture tells us. And He will never leave us nor forsake us. Outside of Him, we have no firm place to stand, no person, place or thing that we can stake our faith on. Riches and possessions come and go, all of us are flawed and let others down, honors and applause wilt like spring flowers with no water and are no security to rest our faith upon. They are merely given for us to enjoy on our treks to heaven, not to place our trust in.
Peter tells us our comfort is found in God meaning our hope is undefiled, pure and eternal. Our hope is based on what will never change. He writes in 1 Peter 1:3-5 (NIV): “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” Christ is the solid Rock upon which we stand – all else is sinking sand, as the great hymn goes. It behooves us not to rely on vain and perishing things.
Satan and self often seek to direct our attention to the lesser objects of nature. Getting us distracted from God’s best for our lives. It is easy to get off course and miss the blessings that could have been ours by fervently pursuing the world with all its glitz and glitter. That is not to say we do not enjoy what His Hand allows, rather we do not live for that. We live for Him. We need firm resolutions to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. We are to know His Word and seek to practice what we know to be true, striving for humility and self-denial as did our Savior – seeking to walk as Jesus walked through His power and for His glory.
I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me. Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Philippians 1:20-27 (NIV)