*BE INTERESTED IN THE LITTLE PROFITS*
Good Friday With Jesus
8th June, 2023
1 Timothy 4:8 KJV - For BODILY EXERCISE PROFITETH LITTLE: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.
1 Timothy 6:6 KJV
But godliness with contentment is GREAT GAIN.
Which one would you prefer to have in any field of endeavour, any day- little profits or great gain? Of course anyone would choose to have great gain any day, to the neglect of little profits! It takes so much time to gather little profits over time and space, to turn them into much. It is this fear of taking too much time and effort to gather little profits which may not even amount to so and so much, that ends up making us great wasters. But God doesn’t want us to great wasters. He wants us to be interested in gathering little profits.
Many times, Christians are just satisfied with the fact that they are saved and that the Holy Spirit lives in them. As such, they magnify their interests in the nature of godliness so much to the neglect of bodily upkeep, thinking of the latter as of little importance or little profit, just like the scripture above says. Godliness, which refers to spiritual exercises like prayer, Word study, bearing the fruits of the spirit, etc, has got great rewards and promises attached to it, including benefits for the afterlife. True as this is, bodily exercise, which involves things like physical exercise, walking, moving, working or doing something with your hands, has got profits attached too, though quantified by the Bible as little. Many believers have become utterly lazy because they’ve got their eye on the great gain instead of the little profits. This too is evil. Being more interested in things that will give you great gain than in things that will give you little profits is certainly from an evil eye. One must not have an evil eye.
Proverbs 28:22 NKJV - A man with an EVIL EYE HASTENS AFTER RICHES, And does not consider that poverty will come upon him.
Suppose you learn that doing a certain kind of job can fetch you say, one million dollars a day, and you find that you equally possess an ability which when put to use can help you fetch say one dollar a day. I bet the natural response will be to totally ignore the job that gives you one dollar a day and focus all your energies on the job that gives you one million dollars a day. But the cross does not preach so! The cross preaches that we go for both at the same time, not neglecting one over the other! It takes death to self to do things that can give little profits alongside things that yield huge returns, one both enterprises are God-ordained for you.
Jesus congratulated the Syro-Phoenician woman who believed in little crumbs falling off from the master’s table being of great use to the dogs.
Matthew 15:26-28 KJV - But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. 27 And she said, TRUTH, LORD: YET the dogs eat of the CRUMBS which fall from their masters' table. 28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, GREAT IS THY FAITH: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
Great faith is to believe in both greater truths and lesser truths alike. For example, spiritual exercise is important, true, yet it also true that bodily exercise is important. To go for a job that fetches one million dollars a day is important, true, yet it is also important to keep the job that gives one dollar a day of you can, so you can have something to spare for those who have nothing.
Surely, it is only when we are nailed to the cross and are become selfless that we can see things this way.
May God give you an eye of great faith! May the Lord give you an eye that is better than an evil eye! May the Lord give you wisdom to go for and maintain little profits as you do great gain. May your heart be upright always, that you may have enough to spare.
