Poor

​Meditation
2 Corinthians 8:9-- For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that by His poverty you might become rich.
 
Rather incredible isn’t it? The Lord of the universe willingly disrobed of the heavenly splendor that was His.  

Ø He set aside His royal power to be mocked, slapped, spit on and spiked to a cross--put to death by the very people He came to save.
Ø He let go of omnipresence to walk in sandals across dirty roads to preach to hungry hearts.
Ø He turned off omniscience to take instruction from His Father in the sacred mission of becoming Savior to a lost planet.
Ø He left heaven to experience hunger, thirst, pain, fatigue, disappointment, anger, frustration and the incessant onslaught of temptation.  
Ø He vacated His majestic throne to encounter the invidious attitudes and corpulent lifestyles of the religious, the immoral and the rebellious who had no clue to the depth of His love.  

​When the rich young ruler asked Jesus what good thing he should do to get eternal life Jesus said, “If you want to be perfect,” Jesus said to him, “go, sell your belongings and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me” (Matthew 19:21).  When he turned away in sadness on account of his great wealth, he had no idea what splendor Jesus had set aside.  No idea!
​
If the thought of setting aside riches to follow Jesus makes us defensive, the proof of our misplaced priorities is self-evident. Have we considered that the poverty Jesus embraced is the richness of our salvation?  “The poor in spirit are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs” (Mat.5:3).
 
Inspiration
Our Lord Jesus Christ became poor for our sakes not as an example, but to give us the unerring secret of His religion. Professional Christianity is a religion of possessions that are devoted to God; the religion of Jesus Christ is a religion of personal relationship to God, and has nothing whatever to do with possessions.  The disciple is rich not in possessions, but in personal identity.  Voluntary poverty was the marked condition of Jesus (Luke 9:58), and the poverty of God’s children in all ages is a significant thing. Today we are ashamed and afraid to be poor.—Oswald Chambers in Approved Unto God
 
©1999 Daniel York  ARR. Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box.  Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.      
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)