Leave the Best to Get the Best
By faith Moses, when he had grown up,
refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.
He chose to be mistreated along with the
people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ
as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead
to his reward.
Hebrews 11:24-26 (NIV)
Take
a look at all you have in this world: a home? a nice car? a fulfilling job?
What do you think you could never live without?
Now
consider Moses. He lived in the palace of those ruling one of history’s
greatest empires. Servants supplied his every need. Wealth? He shared the
pharaoh’s treasures. Fame? Everyone knew he was the adopted son of the
pharaoh’s daughter, the boy she’d made her own.
Although
he seemed to have everything, something was missing for Moses. He longed to be
part of something greater, something that went deeper than the earthly life he
knew. He longed to visit the Israelite slaves, his true people, and associate
with them. All the other sons of Abraham worked themselves bone
weary every day serving the pharaoh Moses loved. But Moses was not a slave.
Finally Moses faced a choice: remain in the spiritually empty life of wealth or
find his true spiritual calling among the Hebrews.
What
is it that is stopping us from having a sense of satisfaction. Do we need to
change our behavior or out attitudes towards people, towards monetary things,
towards our relationship with God.
A
missionary once asked a new convert, “Pablo, if you had a hundred sheep, would
you give fifty of them to the Lord’s work?”
He
answered, “You know I would gladly give them.”
“Pablo,
if you had fifty cows, would you give twenty-five to the Lord’s work?”
“Yes,
you know I would be more than happy to do that.”
Again
the missionary asked, “Pablo, if you had two pigs, would you give one of them
to the Lord’s work?”
“That’s
not fair,” Pablo replied. “You know I have two pigs.”
Many people
are extremely generous in theory but not in practice. They say, “If I only had
a million dollars, I would give half of it away.
These verses
tell us that anytime we have to give up something for God, he offers a great
reward, far beyond anything we could gain on our own in the best of the world’s
circumstances.
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