Bigger and better

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Willie T

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This is from the little book, Love Does:

My son Richard set out with a dime awhile back. He went to the first door and said, “Hi, we’re playing Bigger and Better. I’ve got a dime, and I’m hoping to trade up to something bigger. Do you have anything you can trade me?” The guy at the door had never heard of this game. Nevertheless, he was immediately in and he shouted over his shoulder to his wife, “Hey, Marge, there’s a kid here and we’re playing Bigger and Better.” (I love that he said “we.”) “What do we have that’s bigger and better than a dime?” Richard walked away with a mattress.

Rich went with his buddies to the next door and they knocked while Rich stood on the porch with his mattress. The door opened and his muffled voice could barely be heard as he shouted through the Serta pillow top asking if this next neighbor would trade with him for something bigger and better than a mattress. A little while later, he skipped away from the house having traded the mattress for a Ping-Pong table.

Richard wheeled the Ping-Pong table to the next house and traded up for an elk head. How cool is that? I would have stopped there, but Rich didn’t. He kept trading up. By the end of the night, when Rich came home, he didn’t have a dime or a mattress, a Ping-Pong table or an elk head, or the five other things he traded up. Richard drove home in a pickup truck. No lie. He started with a dime and ended up with a Dodge.

I remember reading this quote from C. S. Lewis where he says, “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

That quote reminds me of a passage in the Bible about a young guy who had a lot of money. He was a good guy, very religious, kept the commandments and the whole bit. Jesus told this upstanding guy that if he really wanted to know God, he needed to sell all his possessions and follow Him. The man was sad about the exchange. Like me, he liked his stuff, but he liked Jesus too. Ultimately, though, that young man decided he’d worked too hard for what he had, whatever he had to trade to get to Jesus was just too important, and what Jesus had to offer was just too intangible. So he chose to keep his stuff rather than follow Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t have this conversation to shame the rich young ruler. The challenge that comes into sharp relief is whether we are willing to give up all we have to follow Him, to know God. Are we willing to trade up? It’s a question worth asking because the answer will shape your life one way or the other.

We’ve all given up something at one time or another. At first, it always feels like a huge sacrifice to give up what we’ve got. To Jesus, though, it’s no sacrifice at all. Think about it from His perspective. He comes from heaven, where He has an amazing love relationship with the Father, which, by its nature, is the most beautiful existence any person could have. And He offers that to anybody willing to let go of whatever is giving them a false sense of security. Why would anybody not make that trade? Jesus is basically saying, “Look, none of the stuff you have is going to last, including you. You’ve only got about a dime’s worth of life now. Come and trade up, come follow Me, and you can know God.” In that sense, Jesus isn’t requesting a sacrifice at all. He’s asking us to play Bigger and Better, where we give up ourselves and end up with Him.
 

Pearl

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We’ve all given up something at one time or another. At first, it always feels like a huge sacrifice to give up what we’ve got. To Jesus, though, it’s no sacrifice at all. Think about it from His perspective. He comes from heaven, where He has an amazing love relationship with the Father, which, by its nature, is the most beautiful existence any person could have. And He offers that to anybody willing to let go of whatever is giving them a false sense of security. Why would anybody not make that trade? Jesus is basically saying, “Look, none of the stuff you have is going to last, including you. You’ve only got about a dime’s worth of life now. Come and trade up, come follow Me, and you can know God.” In that sense, Jesus isn’t requesting a sacrifice at all. He’s asking us to play Bigger and Better, where we give up ourselves and end up with Him.
Awesome.
 

Nancy

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This is from the little book, Love Does:

My son Richard set out with a dime awhile back. He went to the first door and said, “Hi, we’re playing Bigger and Better. I’ve got a dime, and I’m hoping to trade up to something bigger. Do you have anything you can trade me?” The guy at the door had never heard of this game. Nevertheless, he was immediately in and he shouted over his shoulder to his wife, “Hey, Marge, there’s a kid here and we’re playing Bigger and Better.” (I love that he said “we.”) “What do we have that’s bigger and better than a dime?” Richard walked away with a mattress.

Rich went with his buddies to the next door and they knocked while Rich stood on the porch with his mattress. The door opened and his muffled voice could barely be heard as he shouted through the Serta pillow top asking if this next neighbor would trade with him for something bigger and better than a mattress. A little while later, he skipped away from the house having traded the mattress for a Ping-Pong table.

Richard wheeled the Ping-Pong table to the next house and traded up for an elk head. How cool is that? I would have stopped there, but Rich didn’t. He kept trading up. By the end of the night, when Rich came home, he didn’t have a dime or a mattress, a Ping-Pong table or an elk head, or the five other things he traded up. Richard drove home in a pickup truck. No lie. He started with a dime and ended up with a Dodge.

I remember reading this quote from C. S. Lewis where he says, “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

That quote reminds me of a passage in the Bible about a young guy who had a lot of money. He was a good guy, very religious, kept the commandments and the whole bit. Jesus told this upstanding guy that if he really wanted to know God, he needed to sell all his possessions and follow Him. The man was sad about the exchange. Like me, he liked his stuff, but he liked Jesus too. Ultimately, though, that young man decided he’d worked too hard for what he had, whatever he had to trade to get to Jesus was just too important, and what Jesus had to offer was just too intangible. So he chose to keep his stuff rather than follow Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t have this conversation to shame the rich young ruler. The challenge that comes into sharp relief is whether we are willing to give up all we have to follow Him, to know God. Are we willing to trade up? It’s a question worth asking because the answer will shape your life one way or the other.

We’ve all given up something at one time or another. At first, it always feels like a huge sacrifice to give up what we’ve got. To Jesus, though, it’s no sacrifice at all. Think about it from His perspective. He comes from heaven, where He has an amazing love relationship with the Father, which, by its nature, is the most beautiful existence any person could have. And He offers that to anybody willing to let go of whatever is giving them a false sense of security. Why would anybody not make that trade? Jesus is basically saying, “Look, none of the stuff you have is going to last, including you. You’ve only got about a dime’s worth of life now. Come and trade up, come follow Me, and you can know God.” In that sense, Jesus isn’t requesting a sacrifice at all. He’s asking us to play Bigger and Better, where we give up ourselves and end up with Him.

A mattress and a moose head, hahaha! I thought at first, the "trading up" was for money like, the dime for a quarter, quarter for 50 cent piece and so on. Great story Willie, there is no "bigger and better" than Christ :) Hmm, a Dodge truck! Good on him!
 
B

brakelite

Guest
This is from the little book, Love Does:

My son Richard set out with a dime awhile back. He went to the first door and said, “Hi, we’re playing Bigger and Better. I’ve got a dime, and I’m hoping to trade up to something bigger. Do you have anything you can trade me?” The guy at the door had never heard of this game. Nevertheless, he was immediately in and he shouted over his shoulder to his wife, “Hey, Marge, there’s a kid here and we’re playing Bigger and Better.” (I love that he said “we.”) “What do we have that’s bigger and better than a dime?” Richard walked away with a mattress.

Rich went with his buddies to the next door and they knocked while Rich stood on the porch with his mattress. The door opened and his muffled voice could barely be heard as he shouted through the Serta pillow top asking if this next neighbor would trade with him for something bigger and better than a mattress. A little while later, he skipped away from the house having traded the mattress for a Ping-Pong table.

Richard wheeled the Ping-Pong table to the next house and traded up for an elk head. How cool is that? I would have stopped there, but Rich didn’t. He kept trading up. By the end of the night, when Rich came home, he didn’t have a dime or a mattress, a Ping-Pong table or an elk head, or the five other things he traded up. Richard drove home in a pickup truck. No lie. He started with a dime and ended up with a Dodge.

I remember reading this quote from C. S. Lewis where he says, “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

That quote reminds me of a passage in the Bible about a young guy who had a lot of money. He was a good guy, very religious, kept the commandments and the whole bit. Jesus told this upstanding guy that if he really wanted to know God, he needed to sell all his possessions and follow Him. The man was sad about the exchange. Like me, he liked his stuff, but he liked Jesus too. Ultimately, though, that young man decided he’d worked too hard for what he had, whatever he had to trade to get to Jesus was just too important, and what Jesus had to offer was just too intangible. So he chose to keep his stuff rather than follow Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t have this conversation to shame the rich young ruler. The challenge that comes into sharp relief is whether we are willing to give up all we have to follow Him, to know God. Are we willing to trade up? It’s a question worth asking because the answer will shape your life one way or the other.

We’ve all given up something at one time or another. At first, it always feels like a huge sacrifice to give up what we’ve got. To Jesus, though, it’s no sacrifice at all. Think about it from His perspective. He comes from heaven, where He has an amazing love relationship with the Father, which, by its nature, is the most beautiful existence any person could have. And He offers that to anybody willing to let go of whatever is giving them a false sense of security. Why would anybody not make that trade? Jesus is basically saying, “Look, none of the stuff you have is going to last, including you. You’ve only got about a dime’s worth of life now. Come and trade up, come follow Me, and you can know God.” In that sense, Jesus isn’t requesting a sacrifice at all. He’s asking us to play Bigger and Better, where we give up ourselves and end up with Him.
Excellent Willie! Have copied it for our church bulletin this week. Love it.