Luke
12:15-21 (NIV) 15 Then he said to
them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of
greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” 16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest.
17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I
have no place to store my crops.’ 18 “Then
he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger
ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And
I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life
easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ 20 “But
God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from
you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ 21 “This
is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich
toward God.”
Romans 8:5-6 (NIV) 5 Those
who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires;
but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what
the Spirit desires. 6 The mind
governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and
peace.
Living according to the flesh sounds a little menacing,
but it seldom looks that way. Jesus described such a person. The ground of a certain rich man yielded an
abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? Jesus
does not say that the man was greedy, or dishonest, or immoral, but only that
he was a fool. His foolishness laid in the trust he placed in his barn. He lost
his life in his livelihood.
The mind
governed by the flesh is death – it is
a living death while the body still breathes. In its milder forms the focus on
the flesh and reliance on self-will leads us to an empty life, to the feeling
that we are going through the motions but not really living. In its more
stressful form this living death is a struggle. It may be felt as the struggle
to survive, to be happy. We wonder what we can do to push the right buttons, to
say and do the right things that will make life work out the way we want. And
we do this until we are weary and worn out. The one thing we do not do is
question our right to rule. But the self cannot deliver us from the damage done
to us by the self. To even state the dilemma sounds confusing.
To live according to the
Spirit is to recognize that life is the work of God, we are dependent on God,
and life comes from being responsive to Him. To live by the Spirit is to be
alive to the existence of a world unseen, to realize that the common ways of
life are continually penetrated by the Presence of God. To set our mind on the
Spirit does not mean that we think about God all the time. It means we submit to
God. To set the mind on the Spirit means that in whatever we are doing there is
space in our mind and heart for God to speak and act as we do our work, as we
interact with family and friends, and as we enjoy some time for fun.
From a sermon preached by
Henry Dobbs Pope May 30, 1993
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell
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