Looking in the Wrong Place
Monday 14th July
There is a story about a wealthy man who lost a diamond cuff link in the gutter one evening outside a swank restaurant. He was down on his hands and knees looking through the debris in the gutter under a brightly shining street light. Soon others, feeling sorry for him, joined him in his search but all to no avail. Finally one of those helping him look asked him, ”Are you sure this is where you dropped it?” He replied, ”No, I dropped it over there,” as he pointed to a dark part of the street about ten feet away, ”but the light is much better here under the lamp post.”
The story is humorous because it is so silly. He will never find what is lost unless he looks in the area in which it was lost.
Yet how many people do this in real life looking for happiness, looking for salvation, everywhere except where it may be found.
Salvation was lost because of sin. Happiness is lost because of selfishness, greed, and covetousness. The constitution of the United States gives every citizen the right to pursue happiness and pursue it they do, at neck breaking speed, but they are looking for it in the wrong place. Joy, peace, happiness, and salvation are to be found in God, but like the foolish fellow looking for his diamond cuff link, most choose to look for these things everywhere except where they may be found.
It is sad that so many today look for happiness in alcohol, in drugs, in illicit sex and these do not bring happiness at all, only misery and finally death. It is a ”no win situation” to look for the fruit of the Spirit which is ”love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meeknss, and temperance” in places where God is not found.
The silly man looking in the wrong place for his diamond found a gutter full of garbage, filthy debris, useless rubbish and vile refuse. This is what the world finds in their fruitless search for happiness by going to the wrong places and doing the wrong things. They end up with all the ugly works of the flesh which are: ”Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.”
Nearly everyone if asked the question, ”Do you want to be saved?” will answer, ”Yes.” Yet Paul tells us that those who look for salvation by doing the works of the flesh will not receive it even though they may say that they want it. He tells us, ”I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”
True happiness, true peace of mind, true joy and contentment can be obtained right now in this life, as well as the promise of living forever with Christ Jesus in his soon coming kingdom. All this can be found but only if we look in the right place for it. It will not be found in the world for John tells us to ”love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” The Spirit of God speaking through Azariah has said, ”The LORD is with you, while ye be with Him; and if ye seek Him, He will be found of you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.”
Peace, joy, freedom from worry, all these things are available to us, right now, but only if we have sought them in the right place. ”Peace I leave with you,” said Jesus, ”my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
Let us ”draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to us.” Let us go to God in prayer and in faithful daily Bible reading and find that which we are seeking in the only place it can be found, in God.