Real gold fears no fire.

To procrastinate obedience is to disobey God.

Are we truly obeying the command to love our neighbor as ourselves if we're storing up money for potential future needs when our neighbor is laboring today under actual present needs?

You and I are characters in God's Story, handmade by Him. Every character serves a purpose.

It's dangerous faith in our untamed Savior that leads us to the joy we crave.

Materialism blinds us to our spiritual poverty. Jesus rebuked the Laodicean Christians because although they were materially wealthy, they were desperately poor in the things of God . Puritan Richard Baxter said, "When men prosper in the world, their minds are lifted up with their estates, and they can hardly believe that they are so ill, while they feel themselves so well."

Shouldn't we suppose that many of our most painful ordeals will look quite different a million years from now, as we recall them on the New Earth? What if one day we discover that God has wasted nothing in our life on Earth? What if we see that every agony was part of giving birth to an eternal joy?