Tag: treasure in heaven

‘Mercies felt in childhood’

November 26th 

…hitherto God hath not failed us: we have no reason to suspect him for the future… God hath so ordered it, that a man shall have had the experience of many years’ provision before he shall understand how to doubt; that he may be provided for an answer against the temptation shall come, and the mercies felt in his childhood may make him fearless when he is a man. Add to this, that God hath given us his Holy Spirit; he hath promised heaven to us; he hath given us his Son; and we are taught from Scripture to make this inference from hence, ‘How should not he with him give us all things else?’

from Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living (Ch. 2, sect. 6)

Better the little that the righteous man has than the abundance of many wicked people… The Lord watches over the blameless all their days, and their inheritance will last forever. They will not be disgraced in times of adversity; they will be satisfied in days of hunger…

The wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous is gracious and giving… A man’s steps are established by the Lord, and He takes pleasure in his way. Though he falls, he will not be overwhelmed, because the Lord holds his hand.

I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous abandoned or his children begging bread. He is always generous, always lending, and his children are a blessing.

…The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord, their refuge in a time of distress. The Lord helps and delivers them; He will deliver them from the wicked and will save them because they take refuge in Him.

from Psalm 37

I started a bit earlier in the psalm than I otherwise would have because that whole section in Holy Living has more overlap with Psalm 37 than you would think.

‘The gladness of the just’

November 6th

The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this* and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.

Luke 16:14-15 (NIV)

The gladness of the just is of God, and in God: and their joy is of the truth.

Anyone whose conscience is pure will easily be content and at peace. You are not more holy if you are praised; nor more worthless for being dispraised. What you are, you are; no words can make you greater than what you are in the sight of God. If you consider what you are in yourself, you will not care what people say about you.

Man looks at the appearance, but God on the heart. Man considers the deeds, but God weighs the intentions. He that looks for no witness on his behalf from outside, shows that he has wholly committed himself to God.

“For not he that commends himself is approved” (says Saint Paul) “but the one whom God commends.”

To walk in the heart with God, and not to be held in bondage by any outward affection, is the state of a spiritual man.

from Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ (Book II, Ch. 6)

*’This’ meaning Jesus’ parable about the dishonest steward, and his ‘no man can serve two masters’ boilerplate (you can’t convince me he didn’t repeat himself, that is just not how teachers work, and there’s no point in coming up with new stuff  when people haven’t gotten what you said the first time).

I also love all the editorializing in the gospels, just these blanket statements like ‘yeah, the Pharisees worldly power-mongers, everybody knows that.’

Contentment

November 5th 

Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.

1 Timothy 6:6-7 (NKJV)

Virtues are, like friends, necessary in all fortunes; but the best are friends in our sadnesses, and support us in our sorrows and sad accidents: and in this sense, no man that is virtuous can be friendless; since God hath appointed one remedy for all the evils in the world, and that is a contented spirit: for this alone makes a man pass through fire, and not be scorched; through seas, and not be drowned; through hunger and nakedness, and want nothing.

For no man is poor that does not think himself so: but if, in a full fortune, with impatience he desires more, he proclaims his wants and his beggarly condition.  For if that which we are or have do not content us, we may be troubled for everything in the world which is besides our being or our possessions.

God is the master of the scenes; we must not choose which part we shall act; it concerns us only to be careful that we do it well, always saying, ‘If this please God, let it be as it is…’  If we choose, we do it so foolishly that we cannot like it long, and most commonly not at all: but God, who can do what he pleases, is wise to choose safely for us, affectionate to comply with our needs, and powerful to execute all his wise decrees.

Here, therefore, is the wisdom of the contented man, to let God choose for him; for when we have given up our wills to him, and stand in that station of the battle where our great general hath placed us, our spirits must needs rest while our conditions have for their security the power, the wisdom, and the charity of God.

from Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living (Ch. 2, sect. 6)

I know I was just complaining about Taylor, but then it turned out this was the perfect follow-up to yesterday’s post, so I guess I get what I deserve. Though there was the wonderfully quaint “He were a strange fool that should be angry because dogs and sheep need no shoes, and yet himself is full of care to get some” so it’s not all dull.

Anyway, happy Guy Fawkes Night to anyone who cares, and a friendly public service announcement not to be d***s to people who believe differently than you.  🔥 🔥 🔥

…and here’s Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture. With cannons.

The Rich Young Ruler (cont.)

October 28th

Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: Wisdom preserves those who have it.

Ecclesiastes 7:12 (NIV)

The sum of the matter in regard to the youth is this:—He had begun early to climb the eternal stair. He had kept the commandments, and by every keeping had climbed. But because he was well to do—a phrase of unconscious irony—he felt well to be—quite, but for that lack of eternal life! His possessions gave him a standing in the world—a position of consequence—of value in his eyes. He knew himself looked up to; he liked to be looked up to; he looked up to himself because of his means, forgetting that means are but tools, and poor tools too. To part with his wealth would be to sink to the level of his inferiors! Why should he not keep it? why not use it in the service of the Master? What wisdom could there be in throwing away such a grand advantage? He could devote it, but he could not cast it from him! He could devote it, but he could not devote himself! He could not make himself naked as a little child and let his Father take him! To him it was not the word of wisdom the ‘Good Master’ spoke. How could precious money be a hindrance to entering into life! How could a rich man believe he would be of more value without his money? that the casting of it away would make him one of God’s Anakim? that the battle of God could be better fought without its impediment? that his work refused as an obstruction the aid of wealth? But the Master had repudiated money that he might do the will of his Father; and the disciple must be as his master. Had he done as the Master told him, he would soon have come to understand. Obedience is the opener of eyes.

from George MacDonald’s Unspoken Sermons (Vol. 2, The Way)

Regarding money, I always liked C.S. Lewis’ view, but there are plenty of other things that we can value/overvalue in the same way. I think it’s more that whatever one thing you won’t give up is what keeps you from pursuing God. (But that may just be the Glen Keane books speaking; Adam Raccoon with his little red ball stands astride my childhood like a snub-nosed colossus.)

The nature of goodness

October 24th

…one came and said to Him, “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?”

Matthew 19:16 (NKJV)

…the Son no more thought of his own goodness than an honest man thinks of his honesty. When the good man sees goodness, he thinks of his own evil: Jesus had no evil to think of, but neither does he think of his goodness; he delights in his Father’s. ‘Why callest thou me good? None is good save one, even God.‘

Checked thus, the youth turns to the question which, working in his heart, had brought him running, and made him kneel: what good thing shall he do that he may have eternal life? It is unnecessary to inquire precisely what he meant by eternal life. Whatever shape the thing took to him, that shape represented a something he needed and had not got—a something which, it was clear to him, could be gained only in some path of good. But he thought to gain a thing by a doing, when the very thing desired was a being: he would have that as a possession which must possess him.

The Lord cared neither for isolated truth nor for orphaned deed. It was truth in the inward parts, it was the good heart, the mother of good deeds, he cherished. It was the live, active, knowing, breathing good he came to further. He cared for no speculation in morals or religion. It was good men he cared about, not notions of good things, or even good actions, save as the outcome of life… Could he by one word have set at rest all the questionings of philosophy as to the supreme good and the absolute truth, I venture to say that word he would not have uttered. But he would die to make men good and true. His whole heart would respond to the cry of sad publican or despairing pharisee, ‘How am I to be good?’

It is not with this good thing and that good thing we have to do, but with that power whence comes our power even to speak the word good. We have to do with him to whom no one can look without the need of being good waking up in his heart; to think about him is to begin to be good. To do a good thing is to do a good thing; to know God is to be good. It is not to make us do all things right he cares, but to make us hunger and thirst after a righteousness possessing which we shall never need to think of what is or is not good, but shall refuse the evil and choose the good by a motion of the will which is at once necessity and choice.

from George MacDonald’s Unspoken Sermons (Vol. 2, The Way)

Understanding and comprehension

October 10th 

But I tell you that you are wrong in this matter, since God is greater than man. Why do you take Him to court for not answering anything a person asks? For God speaks time and again, but a person may not notice it.

Job 33:13-14 (HCSB)

Not  knowing the difference between Heaven
And Paradise, he called them both Heaven.
So when he shrugged at the thought of a god
Blanched in the lights of implausible heights,
Thumbing the armrests of a throne, that was
Heaven. And when he stared out at the sea,
Feeling familiar to himself at last,
He called that Heaven, too. And nothing changed
About either Paradise or Heaven
For it: Paradise retained its earthen
Glamour; and Heaven, because it can’t stand
For anything on its own, like the color
Of rice or a bomb, was happy to play
Along, was happy just to be happy

For once, and not an excuse for mayhem.

Kingdom Come, Rowan Ricardo Phillips

Not sure I entirely agree, but it struck me, and then there’s the consideration that a fair bit of Job consists of the blatherings of three self-important gasbags, so I feel like I’m on pretty safe ground here.

Almond boughs

September 10th 

For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come.

Hebrews 13:14 (NKJV)

Nerve us with patience, Lord, to toil or rest,
Toiling at rest on our allotted level;
Unsnared, unscared by world or flesh or devil,
Fulfilling the good will of Thy behest.
Not careful here to hoard, not here to revel;
But waiting for our treasure and our zest
Beyond the fading splendour of the west,
Beyond this deathstruck life and deadlier evil.
Not with the sparrow building here a house,
But with the swallow tabernacling, so
As still to poise alert, to rise and go
On eager wings, with wing-outspeeding wills,
Beyond earth’s gourds and past her almond boughs,
Past utmost bound of the everlasting hills.

‘Where neither moth nor rust corrupt’ by Christina Rossetti

…and here’s iPoem by George Bilgere, because I just really hate Rossetti’s work, and feel like anyone who’s struggled through it deserves some sort of reward. Also, I didn’t intend to contrast the author of Hebrews’ work with hers, but it… just… kind of… happened anyway?

…and here’s a picture, because I felt like it.

 

Spending time

July 26th

There is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but to all those who have loved his appearing.

2 Timothy 4:8 (CSB)

If we consider how much of our lives is taken up by the needs of nature; how many years are wholly spent, before we come to any use of reason; how many years more before that reason is useful to us to any great purposes, how imperfect our discourse is made by our evil education, false principles, ill company, bad examples, and want of experience; how many parts of our wisest and best years are spent in eating and sleeping, in necessary businesses and unnecessary vanities, in worldly civilities and less useful circumstances, in the learning arts and sciences, languages, or trades; that little portion of hours that is left for the practices of piety and religious walking with God, is so short and trifling, that, were not the goodness of God infinitely great, it might seem unreasonable or impossible for us to expect of him eternal joys in heaven, even after the well spending those few minutes which are left for God and God’s service.

[But] God rewards our minutes with long and eternal happiness; and the greater portion of our time we give to God, the more we treasure up for ourselves; and “No man is a better merchant that be that lays out his time upon God, and his money upon the poor.”

from Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living (Ch. 1)

Where our hearts will be

July 6th

“But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Matthew 6:20-21 (NASB)

…Nor does the lesson apply to those only who worship Mammon, who give their lives, their best energies to the accumulation of wealth: it applies to those equally who in any way worship the transitory; who seek the praise of men more than the praise of God; who would make a show in the world by wealth, by taste, by intellect, by power, by art, by genius of any kind, and so would gather golden opinions to be treasured in a storehouse of earth.

Nor to such only, but surely to those as well whose pleasures are of a more evidently transitory nature still, such as the pleasures of the senses in every direction—whether lawfully or unlawfully indulged, if the joy of being is centred in them—do these words bear terrible warning. For the hurt lies not in this—that these pleasures are false like the deceptions of magic, for such they are not: pleasures they are; nor yet in this—that they pass away, and leave a fierce disappointment behind: that is only so much the better; but the hurt lies in this—that the immortal, the infinite, created in the image of the everlasting God, is housed with the fading and the corrupting, and clings to them as its good—clings to them till it is infected and interpenetrated with their proper diseases, which assume in it a form more terrible in proportion to the superiority of its kind, that which is mere decay in the one becoming moral vileness in the other, that which fits the one for the dunghill casting the other into the outer darkness; creeps, instead of spreading [its wings] and strengthening them in further and further flights, till at last they should become strong to bear the God-born into the presence of its Father in Heaven. Therein lies the hurt.

from George MacDonald’s Unspoken Sermons (The Heart with the Treasure)

 

The Pearl

May 22nd 

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
I know the ways of learning; both the head
And pipes that feed the press, and make it run;
What reason hath from nature borrowed,
Or of itself, like a good housewife, spun
In laws and policy; what the stars conspire,
What willing nature speaks, what forc’d by fire;
Both th’old discoveries and the new-found seas,
The stock and surplus, cause and history;
All these stand open, or I have the keys:
Yet I love thee.

 

…I know all these and have them in my hand;
Therefore not sealed but with open eyes
I fly to thee, and fully understand
Both the main sale and the commodities;
And at what rate and price I have thy love,
With all the circumstances that may move.
Yet through the labyrinths, not my grovelling wit,
But thy silk twist let down from heav’n to me
Did both conduct and teach me how by it
To climb to thee.
from George Herbert’s The Pearl