Exceedingly & Abundantly

How much would you pay to be healed? What is your health worth? What is it worth to you to maintain your relationships and be in community?

On the negative side, we won’t stay there long, we read about a murder in east Tennessee because someone “de-friended” someone else on Facebook! Granted, this is unhealthy form of relationship to say the least, but it serves to illustrate how desperate some people are to have friends and be in community.

OK, quickly to the positive side. If you could pay a sum to take away an illness that impacted every aspect of your life, how much would you be willing to pay? How far would you go? How much of your material goods would you be willing to liquidate to be healthy?

In the Old Testament passage of II King 5:1ff, it seems that Naaman left home with over $400,000 dollars in silver, more than $4,000,000 dollars in gold, and ten changes of clothes. I think it would be safe to say that the clothing was not something he selected from his wife’s Good Will box that was about to be donated. Namman expected to pay top dollar and he came with the money in hand.

It is impossible for us to put a dollar value on our health. Most of us, if we had the money, would spend almost any amount if we felt that we could beat cancer, overcome heart disease, or recover from AIDS. Some families go hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt with experimental treatments and drugs to grab a few more years, or maybe only a few more months, of life.

A friend of mine, who at one time was one of only a handful of people in the world being treated for a particular form of cancer,  said, “After my insurance maxed out, I quit reading the fine print at the bottom of the forms I signed telling me that I would be entirely responsible for the bill. What difference did another $10,000 make when you already owed a sum you could never pay back?”

Now, imagine the title of  our message for today – EXCEEDINGLY AND ABUNDANTLY. The exceeding part and the abundant part have nothing to do with stress and anxiety. They have to do with blessings. Imagine, buried alive under debt, stress, tension, anxiety, fear, and worry, only to have the dirt shoveled away and to feel the rush of cool, clean oxygen filling our lungs. It is an experience most of us have nothing to compare with. Yet, it is the very experience God gives to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Exceeding and Abundant love, mercy, compassion, grace, and life!

Pastor Craig