Today's Daily Lesson comes from Luke chapter 11 verses 37 through 41:
37 While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. 38 The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39 And the Lord said to him, "Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.40 You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you."
Now here is something obvious, yet very easily missed: the cure for greed is giving away.
That is about as simple and as straightforward as it gets. But it is also not the answer we were hoping for.
I, for one, would prefer my greed to be cleansed in some other kind of less demanding way. More money would surely lessen my desire for it!
But no, the cure for the love of money is less, not more. The cure is letting go, giving up.
If I want the inside of the cup to be cleansed then I have to poor out what is within. If I want to be relieved of my fantasies of all that I could do with a little bit more then I've actually got to do with a little bit less.
And as we say in West Texas:
"Well, shoot."
No comments:
Post a Comment