$3 Worth of God
Today, I came across this story by Wilbur Rees. It utterly convicted me and I wanted to share it with you.
"I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please, not enough to explode my should or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of Him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please."
Wow. I'm not even sure that there are words that I can say to this. The first thing that crossed my mind was, "Lord forgive my evil heart for ever thinking this way." See here's the thing: it's not like I intentionally think this way. It's not like I even want to think this way. But I do. In the way I yelled at the person who cut me off in traffic. When I had a perfect chance to share the Gospel with someone who needed it, but let the moment slide. The times that I find myself using the same crass and vulgar language as my coworkers. Those nights that I go out with the sole intention of doing things that I know my Jesus wouldn't have me do.
In every time I do these things, and then do them again. My repeated wrong actions show my lack of desire for transformation. Regardless of whether or not I realize it, I am screaming to the world that I want nothing more than $3 worth of God. Is this what I want?
I find that I relate to Paul all too well when he says in Romans 7:15-16, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good."
I don't want a mere $3 of God. Yet I far too often live like it. Do you?
"I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please, not enough to explode my should or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of Him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please."
Wow. I'm not even sure that there are words that I can say to this. The first thing that crossed my mind was, "Lord forgive my evil heart for ever thinking this way." See here's the thing: it's not like I intentionally think this way. It's not like I even want to think this way. But I do. In the way I yelled at the person who cut me off in traffic. When I had a perfect chance to share the Gospel with someone who needed it, but let the moment slide. The times that I find myself using the same crass and vulgar language as my coworkers. Those nights that I go out with the sole intention of doing things that I know my Jesus wouldn't have me do.
In every time I do these things, and then do them again. My repeated wrong actions show my lack of desire for transformation. Regardless of whether or not I realize it, I am screaming to the world that I want nothing more than $3 worth of God. Is this what I want?
I find that I relate to Paul all too well when he says in Romans 7:15-16, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good."
I don't want a mere $3 of God. Yet I far too often live like it. Do you?
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