Chapter Two – The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing
“Before the Lord
God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him a world of useful and
pleasant things for his sustenance and delight. In the Genesis account of the
creation these are called simply “things.” They were made for man’s use, but
they were always meant to be external to the man and subservient to him. In
the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come.
Within him was God; without, a thousand gifts which God had showered upon him.
[Italics mine.]
“But sin has
introduced complications and has made those very gifts of God a potential
source of ruin to the soul.
“Our woes began
when God was forced out of His central shrine and things were allowed to enter.
Within the human heart things have taken over.” [Italics mine].
(Pages 21 – 22).
Why does Tozer
decide that we must deal with the “blessedness of possessing nothing” so early
in our pursuit of God? If he thought this important 77 years ago, what might he
think today?
“There is within
the human heart a tough, fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess,
always to possess…The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we
dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die…God’s gifts now take the place of God,
and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution” (page
22).
As I read this
chapter once again, I wonder if I have ever truly read it; I wonder if I have
ever truly seen it; I wonder if I am even seeing it now.
The first extended
teaching that Jesus gave is what we call the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew
chapters 5 – 7. This is the first extended Word from God on earth, speaking not
just to a crowd 2,000 years ago, but speaking to all humanity for all time, and
speaking to you and me in our time. Instead of speaking in a cloud on Mount
Sinai, God has come down to speak plainly to us on earth; we see His face, we
hear His Voice…or do we?
For in God’s
first message to us on earth, he says many things which ought to unnerve us and
shake our souls and perspectives…but do they?
“Do not store up
for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where
thieves break in and steal. 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 6:19
– 21).
How do we
respond to these words from God? Make no
mistake, Jesus is God (John 1:1 – 18). Where is our treasure? Where is our
heart?
Are things which
were meant to be external to us now living within us? Do we now serve things
which were meant to serve us? What inhabits the shrine of our heart?
I have asked
over the years whether a fish knows that it lives in an aquarium, and I wonder
if we realize that we live in a prison of consumption and possession. We have been
trained from childhood to consume and to possess, to acquire; we are all
engaged in a game of Monopoly in one form or another.
Money, money, money
is our arbiter; money is our national policy, money forms our international
relations, money and possessions form our lives and the lives of our families,
and money and possessions form much of the professing church. Can we not “see”
that we are living in the system portrayed in Revelation Chapter 18? Does a
fish know that it lives in an aquarium?
What do people
talk about? They talk about possessions and money. How do we vote? We vote our
pocketbooks. When grandparents talk to me about their grandchildren, what do
they talk about? Their financial success. What is the purpose of education? It
is to get a good-paying job.
What will our
children and grandchildren say to us before the Throne of God when they find
out that they’ve wasted their lives in the pursuit of possessions, rather than pursuing
God? Will they say, “Why didn’t you tell us?”
What will
congregations say to their pastors? “Why didn’t you tell us what Jesus said?
Why didn’t you challenge us with the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of
Christ? Why did you countenance and encourage our pursuit of possessions when
we should have been making ourselves God’s possession?”
Then we have the
Satanic teaching called the “Prosperity Gospel.” While its tentacles have
reached into most churches, in its blatant form it is the whore of Revelation
18 parading herself within the professing church and its institutions. The
whore has no need to seduce, she intoxicates with promises of health and wealth
and “blessing” – and in one sense her sin is her openness, she does not care
about decorum. The fact is that many of us will go along with the intoxication
as long as it operates within certain social norms – we must not tear away our
facades.
Do we realize
that our economic and social and political system depends on our worship and
consumption and possession of things?
Well, the good
news is that there is a way out of all of this, and Tozer will lead us through
it before we conclude the chapter, but I wonder if we will be able to hear what
he says and see what he writes.
My sense is that
we ought not to say, “Have things taken possession of my heart? Have they
entered into the shrine of my soul?”
Instead, perhaps
we should ask, “How have things taken possession of my heart? How have things
entered into the shrine of my soul?”
Making ourselves
the exception, making our church the exception, is probably the dumbest thing
we can do.
Let’s recall,
that “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure” means that what takes root in
my heart may not be what takes root in your heart. What I serve may not be what
you serve.
What things are
inside me that ought to be outside me?
Am I God’s
possession?
What about you?
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