Who Has the Advantage?
Businesses want to have the competitive advantage. When you reach age 65, you probably need to consider a Medicare Supplement Insurance plan or a Medicare Advantage Plan. If you have the advantage, it implies that you are in a better position, or conditions favor you. It means your position or situation is in advance of another.
In this world, it is assumed the wealthy and the powerful have the advantage. That is rarely true for long, but on the surface, it seems to be true. The problem is that death is the leveling field for all of humanity. You brought nothing into the world, and you can take nothing out. Your power is zero when you die. Your wealth, if not invested in treasures that are deposited in heaven, evaporates. Your pockets are empty when you return to the dust.
Paul said this to Timothy: “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” 1 Timothy 6:6-10
Paul is saying that those who are godly and content have gain. They avoid the snare of false advantages, as well as ruin and destruction.
Jesus Said You Get to Choose
He asked what profit, or advantage, does anyone have if they gain the whole world (profit, position or power) and then they lose the one thing that has eternal significance. They lose their soul. It doesn’t sound like a good deal to follow Jesus at first, because following Jesus seems like you are losing life. But following Jesus is anything but loss.
“And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “’If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’” Mark 8:34-38
How to Identify a Follower of Jesus
Ecclesiastes 12:1-8 paints a word picture that says, “remember your Creator.” Do it sooner rather than later. You will return to stand before God. Stand with Jesus, not on your own. That is how true followers of Jesus think and live.
“Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed and the doors on the street are shut—when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low— they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets— before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.” Ecclesiastes 12:1-8
Five Minute Friday
This post is part of the weekly Five-Minute Friday link-up.
All scripture passages are from the English Standard Version except as otherwise noted.
Know Your Flocks & Herds 