by Raymond Wanner

The Lord has been reminding me again recently that who we are and what we do determines our destiny. I see this from verses like: “The foolishness of man ruins his way” (Proverbs 19:23) and, “The integrity of the upright will guide them, but the crookedness of the treacherous will destroy them” (Proverbs 11:3). Or, this one: “Righteousness guards the one whose way is blameless, but wickedness overthrows the sinner” (Proverbs 13:6) – and we know that that righteousness is the righteousness of Christ. These verses have brought out a lot of thoughts concerning a lesson I was reminded of recently.

Two years ago the Lord taught me a spiritual lesson taken from a natural circumstance. For years I had always struggled financially during the winter because my work was typically slow during that time. Then someone reminded me, “Don’t you know you should always have a certain amount set aside as emergency funds?” You see, I had the bad habit of spending my money on a lot of stuff I really didn’t need, and I always seemed to do it right before winter! So, like the verse above, my foolishness “ruined my way.” Spending freely without counting the cost made a poor boy out of me. But, God, in His kindness showed me the better way of denying my wants. By living a disciplined life during the summer when I had more work and earned more money, when hard times came, I was able to dig out of my savings when needed – savings which I had now because of living a disciplined life. Fast forward to a few months ago – some land right next to our property which we really liked, came up for sale, and amazingly, we were actually able to afford it. By faithfully denying myself in preceding years, spending very carefully and saving all I could, I now had enough to buy the property outright.

The financial principle is a valuable lesson to learn, no doubt, but the spiritual principle is even more important. Sure, I may have been disappointed if I hadn’t been able to buy the land. But living to please my flesh would have incurred God’s judgment which would be a million times worse than that disappointment. “The one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption” (Galatians 6:8). Thankfully there is a positive side too, in the latter half of the verse: “But the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” Praise the Lord!

So, to summarize, here are our two options: (1) be undisciplined and careless with our time and money, and eat the fruit of poverty when hard times come; or (2) be disciplined and careful with our time and money, and eat the fruit of plenty, even in hard times.

If we live careless lives, living for the moment and spending our time only for ourselves, then we will be a thousand times more disappointed when we stand before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He will judge us according to the deeds done in our body, and we’ll be shocked when all the earthly things we accumulated will be gone, leaving us penniless from eternity’s perspective! If we deny ourselves now, however, living for Jesus only, living for eternity… oh, the joys that are awaiting us! It will be a thousand times better on that day. It will be worth it all! Yes, we will have to endure the pain that comes with dying to ourselves now, “missing out” on what this world deems as important. But that is not even worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us on that day when we will see the blessed face of the One who was pierced for our iniquities. We will hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Hallelujah! May it be so.