Gold, white clothes and eye salve
Want to know the best place to invest right now? Gold, white clothes and eye salve. What in the world?!? We’ll come back to that.
Solomon said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” We have seen the truth of those words recently. If you, like many folks, were out of town for spring break you may have missed the Wall Street Journal headline which read, “The Past Six Days Have Shaken American Capitalism.” An all-weekend emergency meeting ended with the Feds using a statute that had not been used since the Great Depression to keep Bear Stearns out of bankruptcy. One investor alone lost more than a billion dollars in Bear Stearns stock over that weekend.
Investors are shaken by this development and are scrambling to figure out where to invest now. Gold, white clothes and eye salve? That’s not on the cover of any investment newsletter that I have ever seen, but you can hang your hat on it because of who it is that is giving the counsel; namely the Lord. If you need to make reference, look at the Scripture passage found in Revelation 3:18-20. Making these investments yields the greatest return of all…eternal returns.
Do you want to be rich? Truly rich? Then listen to the words of the Lord from this passage. “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness, and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.”
And to whom is this being written? To those who say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” This passage was directed at the affluent church in Laodicea and is a sobering reminder of what the Lord thinks about such prideful arrogance. We read on to find his response. “But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” If we are honest, that statement seems a bit harsh, doesn’t it? Then comes the part which the human heart can hardly comprehend. He says, “Those who I LOVE I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent.”
“In what way is that loving?” you may ask. The answer is apparent when we look at the alternative: consider the behavior of undisciplined, unrebuked children. They grow up to be undisciplined, unrebuked adults. And what happens when undisciplined, unrebuked adults get their hands on lots of money and become rich and think they are the ones that have made it happen? Pride and greed top the list, right next to “It is all about me and my agenda. Now I have the power that comes from money and can now get my way even if it comes at the expense of your way.” And where can that lead? Well, most recently it led to a near meltdown of an entire economy over the period of a single weekend.
God loves His children too much to leave them in the world alone. He rebukes and disciplines out of the same love that we discipline our own children. He only wants what is best for us. As Christians, we are Easter people with an eternal perspective. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ transforms all of life. We have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit to counsel us on all areas of life.
So…gold, white clothes, and eye salve. What do they symbolize? That is what these columns are all about; to invite you to think, ask, be counseled by the Holy Spirit and most of all, to respond.
